Car Hire Excess Insurance - Car Rental Excess Insurance
Protect yourself against paying the excess if you have a scrape in your hire car abroad with car rental excess insurance. Car rental insurance covers your rental car excess payment - which could cost up hundreds of pounds - when you take out a hire car.Selecting the "get a quote" button will direct you to Insurance 4 Car Hire.
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More about car hire excess insurance
When you rent a vehicle, one of the things that might commonly set you back is not only the amount you pay in insurance but the excess you might still have to bear. Car hire excess insurance offers a way that might help the sting out of that apparently large excess sum.
What is an excess?
Excess is a term commonly used in all manner of insurance agreements. In the event of any claim you make under the insured terms of the contract, it is the amount for which you remain responsible. The excess is the amount of the insured loss or damage which you pay, before the insurer settles the remainder. Effectively, therefore, an excess represents an uninsured liability.
What this means in terms of car rental agreements, therefore, is that the prescribed sum (the excess) is the maximum amount you might have to pay in the event of loss or damage to the vehicle. If the damage is less than the excess amount, you might find yourself shouldering the entire bill; if the damage is more extensive or the car is entirely written off, you are obliged to pay the whole of the excess amount and the insurer pays the remainder.
Although the exact amount of excess varies from one rental agreement to another and may be quite different in various countries of the world, it may nevertheless range from some £500 to three times that amount.
With the excess commonly represented by such a significant sum, and one that you may have to pay in the event of loss or damage, car hire excess insurance offers a way of indemnifying yourself against such a significant expense – although the car rental company’s excess may stay in place, the liability you may have for paying that sum is covered by your separate car hire excess insurance.
Where may you buy this type of excess insurance?
Because of the relative size of the rental agreement excess, and its potential for leaving you considerably out of pocket, most car hire companies around the world offer the top-up or parallel excess insurance to minimise your personal risk.
Although car hire companies are not principally in the business of selling insurance, of course. Nevertheless they may count on the fact that when many customers step up to the desk and are faced with the prospect of taking on such a large financial responsibility as the excess, they might readily buy the offered excess insurance.
However, you may be able to avoid such a last minute decision, and save yourself a welcome saving in the cost of excess insurance, by buying it in advance from a specialist hire car excess insurance provider.
Rental excess insurance may save you money
There are many aspects of rental car insurance that you may wish to give some thought to and one of these is rental excess insurance.
Why insurance for the excess may be worthwhile
Typically when taking out insurance for a rental car there is a certain amount of excess that the provider expects you to pay, if a claim is made. The amount of excess may differ between car rental companies and in some cases it may differ by a thousand pounds or more.
To gamble or not to gamble that is the question
While the chances are that you have nothing to worry about when driving your rental car and you remain safe and sound, there is also the possibility of you having to make a claim on insurance. With this in mind it is a bit of a gamble when it comes to taking out rental excess insurance. You may be lucky enough not to need it, but on the other hand, you may.
Insurance from rental car companies or independent provider
When you consider that a claim on the rental insurance may lead to you having to find a considerable sum of money, taking out rental excess insurance may be worthwhile. Bear in mind that this type of insurance is not typically included in the basic rental insurance that rental companies often add in with the cost of the rental car. If you want this type of insurance you typically have to add it in. Taking out insurance independently with a specialist provider of car hire excess insurance may prove to be more competitive.
SLI insurance: extra safety
Claims arising from road traffic accidents can involve very large sums of money indeed. In some parts of the world – North America, for instance – claims from injured or affected third parties can potentially be huge. SLI insurance (which stands for Supplemental Liability Insurance) could provide you the extra safety and financial protection necessary to counter such claims.
In practically every part of the world, of course, a certain basic minimum level of insurance cover is necessary before you can legally drive a car – including a hired vehicle – on the public highway. Although this basic level of cover is included in the standard package offered by vehicle rental companies, however, you could risk being significantly under-insured unless you choose to top by extending the cover.
SLI insurance, for example, specifically addresses the question of third party claims and takes into account the potential size of these by typically insuring you the policy holder for up to US$1 million (or its equivalent in the currency of the country in which you are driving).
A convenient way of purchasing such cover is to do so in advance of your proposed trip and buy from a specialist online insurance provider. Packages will typically incorporate not only SLI insurance, but also CDW insurance (a collision damage waiver that covers the theft or cost of repairs to the vehicle in the event of an accident), any excess applied to the insurance arrangements you have agreed with the rental company, and the cost of repairs to the windows, glass, tyres, wheels, roof and underside of the hired vehicle (since these are areas typically excluded from many hire car insurance agreements).
CDW insurance explained
When you are planning to hire a car and especially if it is one from a rental company abroad, there might be times when some of the terms are confusing. For instance, just what is CDW insurance?
Very simply, it is a collision damage waiver (hence, CDW) that frees you from an element of liability for the cost of repairs if the hired vehicle is damaged in an accident. It is important to note, however, that such a waiver will typically give you only give you partial indemnity or financial protection. This is because in most instances CDW insurance is limited by:
- the imposition of an excess – meaning that you will continue to be responsible for the first part of any claim under the waiver agreement;
- the exclusion of certain parts of the vehicle from the cover for loss or damage – such exclusions commonly relate to the wheels and tyres, the roof, the underside and the windscreen and other windows of the vehicle.
In other words, CDW is unlikely to give you complete financial protection and freedom from liability in the event of the theft, loss or damage of the hired vehicle.
In the light of these limitations to the collision damage waiver that might be offered as part of your rental agreement – and included in the advertised daily rate of hire – you might also want to consider taking out excess insurance cover (as sold by a number of independent online specialists, for example) that not only specifically protects you against having to pay what can be a particularly expensive excess, but can, in some cases, also extends cover to those parts of the vehicle otherwise uninsured by the CDW insurance.
Options for rental excess insurance
It can sound frankly alarming when the agent at the hire car check out desk points out that the insurance on the vehicle you are about to drive away is subject to an excess of many hundreds of pounds. So much so, in fact, that the observation is typically followed by a question about whether you’d like to buy rental excess insurance.
Just as the name suggests, this is insurance that indemnifies you against your liability for paying the excess in the event of the theft of or loss or damage to the hired vehicle. It is insurance which many drivers of rented vehicles consider well worthwhile, because:
- the amount of excess that typically forms part of the standard hire car insurance contract is generally so high; and
- any kind of vehicle repair, following loss or damage can prove very expensive.
Taken together, therefore, these two factors can result in your being liable for the major part of many repair bills – or having to pay the whole of the excess in the event of a major collision or the insurance write-off of the vehicle. That is why many consider rental excess insurance so worthwhile.
Although it offers potentially significant financial protection, however, many drivers consider the premiums charged by rental companies for such “top-up” cover to be disproportionately high. Fortunately, therefore, an alternative source of rental excess insurance is available entirely independently through specialist providers (marketing the product largely via the internet) and often but not always featuring competitive rates when compared to those charged by vehicle rental companies.
What is car excess insurance?
The term car excess insurance is especially used in the vehicle rental market, but works in a similar way to the insurance excess that probably attaches to the cover you have arranged for your own car. That is to say, the excess represents the first part of any claim for loss or damage to the vehicle. This is a risk – and possible cost, therefore – which you bear yourself.
Probably the biggest different between the car excess insurance on your own vehicle and one you have chosen to rent, however, is that the latter is likely to be a considerably larger sum. For example, in some parts of the world, the excess on the standard insurance cover that comes with your hire car can be more than fifteen hundred pounds.
An excess effectively represents an uninsured loss and is the first part of any claim to be paid under the terms and conditions of the service – if the cost of repairs or replacement of any lost, stolen or damaged parts of your hire car are less than the excess, therefore, you will be responsible for paying for any repair or replacement; if those costs are greater than the excess, then will be liable for payment of the whole of the excess.
Car excess insurance helps protect you against this liability. Although this “top-up” insurance is frequently sold by car rental companies themselves, the typically often expensive daily rate may add a significant amount to your car rental bill. An alternative, therefore, and one that could prove relatively more affordable, is the purchase of excess insurance separately and in advance from an independent specialist.
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Confidence in car rental insurance
What is it likely to take to give you confidence and peace of mind about your car rental insurance? The chances are that you’ll want it to offer full financial protection and compensation for any damage, theft or loss throughout the period of hire. If your hired vehicle is stolen, vandalised, involved in an accident, or suffers any kind of damage, you might reasonably expect that the insurance you’re likely to have bought from the rental company will pay to put things right.
Few of us are likely to take the time to probe the small print and discover just what the car rental company’s insurance cover provides – especially if we’re hiring the car abroad, with a contract in a foreign language. Unfortunately, however, the car rental insurance that comes as a standard component of the advertised rate will typically offer financial protection that is significantly restricted by the following:
- a fairly steep excess (typically at least several hundreds of pounds and not uncommonly over a thousand pounds). If the vehicle is a write-off after a serious accident or is stolen and not recovered, therefore, you could end up having to pay the whole amount of the excess; and
- exclusions to loss or damage to certain areas of the vehicle (typically, damage to the windscreen or other glass, tyres, wheels, roof and underside of the car). In the event of any damage to parts of the vehicle excluded by the insurance cover, of course, you could be held liable for the cost of repairs.
You could avoid these potential shortcomings in the rental company’s standard package and restore your confidence in the full protection of car rental insurance by buying separate excess insurance (which in some cases may cover those parts of the vehicle excluded in the rental company’s cover) from an independent specialist insurance provider.
Vehicle rental insurance that reaches the parts others might not
Have you ever asked yourself exactly what’s covered when you sign your vehicle rental insurance agreement? The agent at the rental company’s desk will almost certainly point out that the standard, basic insurance cover – which is typically the minimum required to get you legally on the road – nevertheless imposes a fairly hefty excess for you to shoulder.
Less often mentioned, though, are the exclusions commonly attached to vehicle rental insurance agreements. If you are one of those rare customers likely to examine the agreement carefully – or if you are unfortunate enough to have been caught out by an exclusion you were not aware of before the damage was done – you might well find that loss or damage to the following parts of your hire car are specifically excluded from the standard insurance:
- windscreen and windows;
- wheels and tyres;
- the roof; and
- the underside of the vehicle.
Although these are areas of the vehicle perhaps unlikely to suffer significant damage in a minor collision, they are nevertheless parts which could prove expensive to repair – and will seem all the more expensive if not covered by insurance and you have to foot the bill yourself.
Though the standard cover offered by your car rental company might leave you exposed to risks such as these, the good news is that there is a readily available insurance product that not only extends protection to these areas of the vehicle but also provides indemnity against any excess written into the rental company’s basic insurance cover.
Vehicle rental insurance excess cover is available from independent insurance providers (many of whom offer their services online). Just as the name suggests, these policies will indemnify not only against any excess, but, in some cases, may also extend cover against damage to those parts of the vehicle excluded in the rental company’s standard insurance agreement. However, do check the policy wording before you buy, as every policy is different and what is standard with one rental car hire excess policy may not be with another.
Competitive car insurance for car hire
You might think it odd to talk in terms of competitive car insurance for car hire. After all, most people book their rental vehicle, find that basic insurance is included in the price and, if extra cover is needed against a seemingly high insurance excess, then they buy it directly from the rental company.
The fact is, however, that even though you’re hiring the car from the rental company and have accepted the standard terms of cover that come with the vehicle, there’s nothing to stop you shopping around for that “top up” insurance to cover the normally high excess. Indeed, by shopping around and arranging indemnity against a liability for excesses that typically run to hundreds, if not a thousand, pounds, you may end up saving yourself a considerable sum on the overall cost of car hire.
It’s not only cost savings that you may stand to gain by getting competitive rates on car insurance for car hire in this way. In fact, prohibitive levels of insurance excess on any car you hire, anywhere in the world, could become something that you could forget about for good. Many of the independent car rental insurance providers, for instance, issue policies that are valid for the whole year – however many times you need to hire a car – and you can choose whether this is good for just European rentals or those worldwide.
With such a car insurance for car hire policy safely in your pocket, therefore, you may confidently avoid the potentially expensive and troublesome decision of having to arrange excess insurance at the car rental company’s rates.
Car hire insurance and its “hidden” cost
Have you ever been struck by the “hidden” cost of car hire insurance? To be fair, it’s perhaps not so much a hidden cost as one that you discover only when you arrive at the car rental check-out desk. It happens when the agent advises you that the insurance excess on the basic rental agreement runs into several hundreds of pounds – but that you can cover such a liability by purchasing
This could leave you with a difficult choice:
- either you decline the rental company’s excess insurance and risk having to pay the full amount of the excess (depending on the company and whether you are hiring at home or abroad, the standard excess could range from anything from £500 to £1,600); or
- you fork out for the company’s excess insurance, which is likely to be calculated on a daily rate and could well add hundreds of pounds to your total car hire insurance.
However, there is a way to avoid either of these unwelcome, hidden costs. If you purchase excess insurance cover from an independent provider (many of whom sell such policies online), you can rest assured in the knowledge that any excess is fully covered for the duration of your rental period, you will not need to purchase the rental company’s excess insurance, and you could also find that you are paying considerably less for the cover.
Tackling your excess car hire insurance this way could also help to indemnify you against damage to those parts of the typically excluded from the rental company’s standard cover (windscreens, wheels, underside and roof of the vehicle, for example).