Car Hire Excess - Breakdown cover included?

stuartm

Just back from trip to France and used an excess insurance policy rather than the rental car company's expensive insurance.

I was offered breakdown cover and reading the policy summary (which I had with me) it included 'towing cover'. Without being able to check on the spot, I accepted the rental company breakdown cover which was about Euro 30 for a week's rental. 

Although it's not a huge amount of money, I'm wondering if the cover was the same and that I actually didn't need to take out the specific breakdown insurance. The MSE advice seems to suggest that breakdown isn't covered as standard by the rental company, nor is it usual to have this covered in excess insurance, but would be interested if anyone has compared in detail.

I'm also going to check with the specific excess insurer we used this time.

DullGreyGuy

Every hire car I've had included breakdown and accident recovery as standard, had to call them out once on the former.  Certainly have seen that our preferred hire company now offers an optional "premium recovery" which covers driver fault problems (eg out of fuel, locked keys in car) on top of the standard mechanical breakdown. 

Not aware of hire car excess policies offering this but haven't looked at them for years. 

stuartm

Spoke to Europcar and also Worldwide (the excess insurance provider). Worldwide said they thought the cover was different (i.e. they would cover towing costs only). Speaking to Europcar, it seems that I was mis-sold this time and that what they call 'roadside assistance' (not 'breakdown cover') means calls out for flat tyres, mis-fuelling, windscreen damage which would otherwise be chargable under the excess provision. 

As all of these are covered under the excess insurance, it seems that 'roadside assistance' may not have been required.

DullGreyGuy

Eurocar seems to be the same as our preferred hire car company, standard breakdown is covered in the normal fees, you putting the wrong fuel in, breaking the key etc isn't and thats what the optional extra is for. 

Most of these are covered with the Worldwide Insure Deluxe policy but not the Standard but the limits do look fairly low, £100 max if you've locked yourself out of the car? £300 max for tyres... my last car was £250 per tyre so only covers 1 tyre. 

stuartm

DullGreyGuy said:

Eurocar seems to be the same as our preferred hire car company, standard breakdown is covered in the normal fees, you putting the wrong fuel in, breaking the key etc isn't and thats what the optional extra is for. 

Most of these are covered with the Worldwide Insure Deluxe policy but not the Standard but the limits do look fairly low, £100 max if you've locked yourself out of the car? £300 max for tyres... my last car was £250 per tyre so only covers 1 tyre. 

We had the deluxe policy so probably no need for the 'extra' roadside assistance. That said it worked out to about £5/day so not that upset about it. Also, we booked the rental months ago, then cancelled (for free) and rebooked £130 cheaper when we noticed that prices had dropped significantly