Damage Waiver Insurance - a word of warning

ChrisPriceyboy

We recently booked car rental including damage waiver insurance (in addition to collision damage waiver) when we travelled to Majorca. Upon arriving in Palma and showing the OK Mobility Car Rental agent our booking details and extra insurance purchased, he insisted we needed their OK Premium Cover (damage waiver insurance). We argued we didn't need it and again showed him the detail of the Axa policy we'd bought with our Holiday Autos booking. He refused to accept this and insisted we needed their cover. In the stress of the situation (my wife in a wheelchair and needing to do our onward travel) we paid the 300 Euros and decided to sort it out later. This was a mistake.

OK Mobility refused to accept any responsibility and said we'd enjoyed the insurance cover. 

Has anyone else had similar issues?

My advice is follows
- Make sure you a familiar with the full details of any insurance purchased
- Carry all your documents in hard copy (old school I know but it's easier for an agent to see and read than showing them a mobile phone)
- Carry the telephone number of any third party booking agent and call them from the rental desk if there is a dispute about insurance
- Don't part with any money that you don't think is justified

I'll leave it to you to decide whether you'd want to use OK Mobility!

DullGreyGuy

Unfortunately these types of situations tend to be high pressure... you're off a flight, want to get out the airport and he wants to make his commission. It also doesnt help that people come up with lots of different marketing names for the same thing so unless you read the minutia of the T&Cs there is always risk of confusion. 

Looking at Holiday Auto's website I am guessing you bought the "premium" option which is CDW from the hire company plus an excess insurance from Axa. This in theory means if you have an accident you pay the excess and recover it from Axa rather than the Zero Excess option where you simply dont pay anything.

Its not clear what exactly you purchased on the day from OK Mobility... was it "another" CDW policy or was it an excess waiver? Really depending on what it is depends on your best action... if its CDW then its an issue to take up with Holiday Auto's as they said this was included. If its an excess waiver then unfortunately its unlikely any complaint will go anywhere.

The fact you have chosen to insure the excess independently is irrelevant to the hire car company and really not worth bringing up with them. You should just stick to your guns that you are happy to pay the €1,250 excess, or whatever it is, and have your credit card ready for them to put a hold on it for that plus the late return/incorrect fuel value. The fact someone will refund the excess to you is your secret. 

ChrisPriceyboy

We bought what they called "OK Premium Cover" - this covered damage waiver for things such as car park dinks. The issue for us is not so much what cover we needed, but they would simply not let us proceed with the rental without taking their insurance knowing that we already had the cover they insisted we needed.

brianposter

It seems that you might reasonably reclaim the excess payment from Holiday Autos on the basis that you were unable to obtain a car on the basis of your original booking. It will presumably turn into a "he said, she said" situation but the documents (which you presumably have) will tend to favour your story over that of the car hire company.