SLI/TLI Insurance in California

*Adam*

*I did put this in the Car Hire sub-forum but it's pretty dead in there...*

Travelling to LA next year for 3 weeks and just noticed that on my car hire with Budget, through Discover Cars, it specifically states that Third Party Liability is excluded, whereas CDW and Theft Protection,  both with zero excess, are included.

Every other time I've hired a car in California that's been included.

From looking into it, it seems that it's no longer mandatory (or never was) for this to be offered by the car rental companies in Cali and the onus is on the driver to have their own personal SLI. Assuming that this is what's normally covered by locals credit cards...

Would anyone be able to recommend somewhere for me to get this? Im struggling to find it available on any insurance site on Google, or its just getting confused with my search terms!

Sandtree

The car hire company will sell it or alternatively many of the car hire excess insurers offer SLI as part of their offering and so if you've already paid for excess waiver/reduction you'll be doubling up... havent seen it sold as a standalone policy in the UK

*Adam*

Yeah I know the car hire companies do but apparently they charge through the nose for it.

All rentals to the US generally come with zero excess CDW/Theft, but I guess I'll have to pay for it twice as part of the SLI insurance.

Sandtree

All the optional extras are always very expensive with hire companies as it's captured customers. 

If you hire regularly then an annual excess policy with SLI will probably be cheaper than buying SLI from the hire company plus benefit from not having to pay to reduce excess on other hires. 

*Adam*

Yeah, even though this is a one off rental, I'm thinking the annual excess policy/one off excess policy with primary SLI valid for 1yr is going to be cheapest (I think they run at around £130) as the hire is for 23 days. I'm not sure what Budget charge for it in Cali but I'm assuming it would be around $15 - $20 per day which will be a lot more.