Excess insurance on USA car hire

Sam_Bam

Quick bit of advice from any Forumites who know......I always take out car hire excess insurance from a specialist company when I hire a car.  We're off to the USA next week and our car hire with Alamo includes 'Collision Damage Waiver with zero excess. Includes tyre & roof damage subject to terms of the rental agreement. Extended Protection providing 3rd party liability insurance up to USD 1 million'. I haven't been to the States for 30 years, so I can't remember what the CDW includes. What I'd like to know is do I need to take out a separate excess insurance like I do in the UK and Europe, or is my insurance with Alamo sufficient enough to not have any nasty, expensive surprises if we need to claim. Obviously can't ask Alamo as they'd try to sell me any extra insurance they offer!Thanks

DullGreyGuy

Depends if you have paid for theirs or not... the main thing to remember in the US is if you don't buy theirs then the insurance could only cover as little as $20,000 of third party claims and you'd be on the hook for anything above that. 

HogMan

Provided you book through the .uk website you will be fully covered, as insurances are included (CDW & SLI).
Booking via the .com site will not include all insurances.

CDW with zero excess means that you do not need excess insurance. 

3rd Party cover (SLI) of US$1M should be sufficient.


As an aside Avis has recently dropped its SLI coverage to $500,000, so prior to a recent trip, I took out a policy to top it up to $1M. The policy also serves to cover other excesses worldwide. For a yearly policy it was a little over £80.