Car Hire Insurance Explained
Car Hire Excess Insurance
Although car insurance companies will provide you with all the insurance you legally require to drive their cars, if you don't take any extra insurance you will be left with a large excess to pay if anything goes wrong.
On top of that, car hire companies' insurance tends not to cover tyres, glass or underbody damage at all.
To be fair, you can usually choose to make an extra daily payment to upgrade the insurance so that the excess you have to pay is reduced, sometimes to zero. The only problems with this approach are that it is costly and some parts of the car (tyres and windows especially) are still not covered.
The best solution to this problem is probably to take out Car Hire Excess Insurance. This will pay your excess in the event of damage to your rental car and will cover areas like tyres and glass, which are normally excluded.
Insurance4CarHire.com is one of the leading companies offering car hire excess insurance. It offers special rates for European and Worldwide cover and a choice of single-use or annual, multi-use polices.
What About Car Hire Companies' Own Insurance?
It's important to understand the terms and conditions that apply when you hire a car - especially those regarding insurance and excess payments you may have to make in the event that something goes wrong.
Unfortunately, terms and conditions for rental cars vary considerably from country to country (and even between companies) - so we can't offer you a definitive guide here.
What we can do is explain the standard setup in different countries around the world, so you know what to expect:
UK, rest of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, most of Asia:
Insurance is normally included in car hire rates. This insurance will include third party liability cover, theft cover and Collision Damage Waiver (usually known as CDW).
However, this insurance will always have an Excess. This is the amount you have to pay before the insurance will cover the remainder, should anything happen to your hire car. Car hire insurance excesses are typically hundreds of pounds (in the UK) and similar amounts in other countries.
If you want to avoid the risk of having to pay this excess, the car hire company will sell you additional insurance to reduce the excess to zero (or close to zero). Be warned, however, this additional insurance doesn't usually include damage to tyres or windows and sometimes has other exclusions, too.
An alternative to purchasing additional insurance from your car hire company is to use a third party service such as Insurance4Carhire.com. You can purchase cover from them that you can use to cover the excess payments on your standard car hire insurance.
USA, Central & South America, Canada, Caribbean:
Car hire in these countries often does not include insurance as standard. You have the option of using your own insurance policy or purchasing insurance at a daily rate from the car hire company. The insurance you buy will cover two main areas: CDW (Collision Damage Waiver) and SLI (Supplemental Liability Insurance).
(CDW is roughly equivalent to comprehensive & theft cover in the UK, while SLI equates to third party liability cover.)
There maybe an excess on this insurance, depending on which country you are in. In the Caribbean and Central / South America, excess is standard. In the USA and Canada it is less common but sometimes applies - always ask.
An alternative to purchasing insurance from your car hire company is to use a third party service such as a third party service such as Insurance4Carhire.com. You can purchase car hire insurance cover from them that you can use to meet car hire insurance requirements (CDW & SLI) in countries where insurance is not included in car hire rates.
Car Hire Guides
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