Car hire - use excess insurance or pay out?

purplebiro2

Hiya

We don’t own a car and hire regularly so have an annual excess insurance that we have never claimed on.

Yesterday, in our latest hire, I scraped another car at low speed (the car is wider than I’m used to - that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!!). No lasting damage to the other car (owners were very understanding and won’t claim) but the hire car has some paint damage, which I’ve had quoted £400 ish to repair. Would you pay out on this or notify the car hire firm and reclaim whatever they charge on the excess insurance? It seems pretty obvious to me that this is the sort of eventuality we bought the insurance for but just checking I’m not walking into any traps unknowingly.

jamesk9090

Hi, have you look around at other garages to see what they would offer? I guess the first thing is you run the risk of invalidating your rental agreement since they require you to report any damage to the car.  If you do pay to repair it yourself and they say the repair wasn't done properly then you risk paying for it to be repaired again. 

I would personally go down the insurance route, it seems the less stressful option between the two for me. 

Claiming on the insurance however might lead to an increase in your insurance premium the next year.

unforeseen

Also remember that part of the overall claim for the hire company is the loss of earnings while the car is being repaired. 

born_again

Other party says for now they won't, then they see the cost & they then do claim.
Who's quoted for the repair? 

Why would you not use the insurance you are paying for?

jamesk9090

born_again said:

Other party says for now they won't, then they see the cost & they then do claim.
Who's quoted for the repair? 

Why would you not use the insurance you are paying for?

That's a very good point!