Rental Cars - Insurance & Driving Licence

Harriette17

Hi - my boyfriend has hired a car through RentalCars.com for our trip to Spain in a couple of weeks and there's a couple of things I was hoping you could clarify:
1. Driving Licence - the website says you must provide card and paper counterpart. My understanding was that the paper part had been scrapped and that you no longer had to show this part?

2. Insurance - the booking confirmation says that our coverage is 'Full value of excess charges' - what does this mean? Should I purchase an excess care insurance cover as well?

Thanks,
H

Raymondo111

When booking through Rental Cars.com you should have seen 2 options, 1 - the basic cost of car hire when depending on the supplier they should state the amount of excess you would need to cover on your credit card, 2 - Rental Cars own stand alone excess cover insurance which means that you pay for this cover but still have to cover the suppliers excess charge on your credit card. In the light of any damage the supplier would charge your credit card and you would then claim this back from Rental Cars excess insurance.

Generally Rental Cars excess cover is cheaper than the suppliers cover but still not as cheap as specialist Excess Insurance Companies.

You only need the photo driving licence and technically you should have a code generated by DVLA to give to the supplier which gives access to your driving record but I have not been asked for this in my last 2 hires.

Harriette17

Thanks Raymondo - so just to check (sorry if this is really obvious) - we have the Full Protection Cover, so does that mean that we are covered on the excess as well? I get that we'll have to hand over a credit card regardless but any excess will be covered by the cover we have in place?

Thanks so much for your quick response!

H

benjus

Harriette17 wrote: »

Thanks Raymondo - so just to check (sorry if this is really obvious) - we have the Full Protection Cover, so does that mean that we are covered on the excess as well? I get that we'll have to hand over a credit card regardless but any excess will be covered by the cover we have in place?

Thanks so much for your quick response!

H

Yes, you should be covered for the excess. But you'd probably save some money if you cancel any insurance bought through rentalcars.com and buy a standalone policy instead. I don't think there's any advantage in buying the broker's policy. (buying enhanced insurance from the car hire firm does have the advantage that it's very low hassle if you do need to claim, but it's usually very expensive compared with excess cover).

benjus

Harriette17 wrote: »

1. Driving Licence - the website says you must provide card and paper counterpart. My understanding was that the paper part had been scrapped and that you no longer had to show this part?

The counterpart has effectively been replaced by the driving record codes you can get from the DVLA website. I don't think I've ever actually been asked for this code, after renting vehicles in several countries (including the UK).

WAYT

Harriette17 wrote: »

Thanks Raymondo - so just to check (sorry if this is really obvious) - we have the Full Protection Cover, so does that mean that we are covered on the excess as well? I get that we'll have to hand over a credit card regardless but any excess will be covered by the cover we have in place?

Thanks so much for your quick response!

H

Actually what will happen is that the car hire company will hold perhaps up to 1100€ on your credit card.
If you refuse, you will have to purchase an excess waiver directly from the hire company.
The insurance you purchased is just a standalone policy sold by Rentalcars. Nothing to do with the car hire company.

What is the name of the car hire company?

Harriette17

WAYT wrote: »

Actually what will happen is that the car hire company will hold perhaps up to 1100€ on your credit card.
If you refuse, you will have to purchase an excess waiver directly from the hire company.
The insurance you purchased is just a standalone policy sold by Rentalcars. Nothing to do with the car hire company.

What is the name of the car hire company?

We're hiring through Firefly - we used them a couple of years ago but its only recently that we've been aware of the excess waiver insurance etc.