Depending on where you might be travelling, advance purchase of your hire car cover might not just give you additional security and peace of mind, but also help you to make considerable savings on the cost of insurance.

Car insurance for car hire online

Independent specialist providers of insurance for car hire typically maintain an online presence, where it is possible to request a quote for precisely the cover you need.

Typically, this kind of insurance package offers options based on:

• where in the world you happen to be travelling – whether it is within Europe, or the USA and Canada (although Central and South America and the Caribbean may also be covered), or the rest of the world; and

• whether you wish to buy cover for a single trip or an annual package that allows you multiple trips and hire periods throughout the year.

Not only might such an online purchase neatly take care of your hire car insurance needs before you set foot outside your own front door, but may also come with a number of extras you are unlikely to be offered in the insurance cover arranged by your car rental company.

Just what is covered may depend on the part of the world in which you intend to be renting a vehicle.

USA and Canada

If you are travelling to North America, for instance, your car rental insurance from an online independent provider may typically take care of all your needs, including:

• full Collision Damage Waiver/Loss Damage Waiver (CDW/LDW) – generally up to a maximum single loss or damage claim;

• enhanced third party liability cover through Supplemental Liability Insurance (SLI); and

• cover against theft of the vehicle and damage to the underside, roof, windows and tyres (areas often excluded from the insurance cover provided by your vehicle rental company).

European and Worldwide cover

If you are buying such insurance online from an independent provider, you may find that the scope of the cover is typically different when driving in parts of the world other than North America.

For European and Worldwide cover, for example, you may find that the typical package includes:

• insurance covering the total of any excess applied in the event of loss or damage to the rented vehicle;
• theft; and
• cover against damage to the underside, roof, windows and tyres (areas once again often excluded from the insurance cover provided by your vehicle rental company).

Buying car insurance for car hire online, therefore, may prove a convenient and cost-effective way of arranging the cover you need for your rented vehicle.

Nevertheless, if setting off on a driving holiday you may be looking for a few ideas of places to visit.

Short trips

• Paris is one of the world’s most beautiful cities and a comparatively easy drive up from Calais or Dunkirk etc. Try to avoid the Péripherique (ring road) at peak times during weekdays, as it will inevitably show you some of the comparatively rare traffic jams in France;

• Versailles – home to a fantastic palace of the French kings and a very easy drive from Paris itself;

• Rouen – a comfortable journey from the ports of Dieppe or Le Havre, this Normandy town was very important in the past and retains a fascinating old centre today;

• Deauville – close again to Dieppe and Le Havre, this is a classic seaside town with its own casino and some lovely beaches.

Intermediate trips

• The Loire Valley – perhaps a 3-4 hour drive from ports such as Caen, St Malo and Cherbourg, this beautiful area of the country will expose you to great towns, magnificent chateaux, lovely countryside and some classic vineyards;

• The Dordogne – a truly beautiful and spectacular area, the magnificent countryside here and in ancient towns such as Sarlat, may entice you to come back again and again. Beautifully warm in summer, you will need to allow perhaps six hours to drive from the French Western Channel ports;

• Alsace and Lorraine – two very attractive areas in Eastern France on the German border. The site of much historic bloodshed, they have changed hands numerous times between France and Germany and this is why Strasbourg (a beautiful city) has been chosen as one of the locations of the European Parliament. Allow about 4-6 hours drive up from the Eastern French Channel ports;

Longer distances

• Lyon – another very beautiful city towards the Swiss/Italian borders, that sits astride two rivers. It has great Roman ruins, Medieval treasures and the funicular railway which takes you up to the cliffs and some spectacular views. You are also close to Alpine regions for phenomenal scenery. Anticipate about an eight hour drive from the Eastern Channel ports;

• Carcassonne – down towards the South West Mediterranean coast, you will find this walled medieval city that looks as if it has escaped from a Disney movie set but it is, in fact, perfectly real. Ancient buildings and beautiful warm sunny weather make this entrancing, though it will be a fairly lengthy ten hour drive from the Western ports.

When planning your journey in detail, don’t forget if you are hiring a car in France that it may be advisable to consider taking out rental car excess insurance prior to your departure.

What is it?

• excess insurance may help protect you against the additional expense of uninsured loss or damage to your rental car;

• although your rental agreement may include an element of insurance cover, the latter typically includes an excess – that, depending on the vehicle you are renting and the part of the world in which you may be travelling, might range from £500 up to a potentially very costly £1,600;

• an excess is an uninsured risk, meaning that you pay the first part of any insurance claim;

• thus if there is any loss or damage to the hire car costing less than the amount of the excess, you need to pay the entire cost of putting it right – if the loss or damage costs more than the excess, you need to pay the whole of the excess amount;

• excess insurance, therefore, might be viewed as a top-up form of protection to indemnify you against the whole or part of this excess;

Where to buy it

• recognising that a number of their customers are likely to want to protect themselves against the risk of paying what may be a substantial sum in excess, many car rental companies offer excess insurance – which you might also see advertised as super-CDW – super Collision Damage Waiver – in some parts of the world (North America in particular);

• this may be the solution if you have left purchasing such cover until the last minute;

• if you are looking for cheap car hire excess insurance, however, you might find a more affordable solution lies in buying separate, standalone cover from an independent insurance provider before you set out on your travels or even before you make your first car rental reservation;

• buying from such an independent provider – many of whom maintain a presence on the internet, where you may purchase the cover directly – may also give you the option of purchasing excess insurance valid for the entire year and an unlimited number of hire periods;

• policies such as these may also include cover against damage to parts of your hire vehicle that is otherwise excluded from the rental company’s insurance package – typically, damage to the underside, roof, tyres and windows, for example;

• typically, you may find that there is a limit to the maximum value of claims that may be made during the course of the year;

• cover from an independent specialist provider, however, may offer your route to cheap car hire excess insurance.

Supplementary Liability Insurance

To understand SLI insurance, it might be helpful first to remind ourselves that in most parts of the world local legislation demands that the driver of any vehicle has a minimum level of third party insurance before legally taking to the road.

Even though there might be such a legal requirement, however, this does not necessarily mean that such a basic level of cover is adequate to meet all possible claims from third parties.

This might be especially the case in the United States, where the term supplementary liability insurance – or SLI insurance – is most commonly used. It is typically the cover over and above the legally required third party cover to help assist in meeting potentially very expensive claims from third parties.

Buy here for use over there

Although supplementary liability insurance might be tailored for use in the United States and Canada, it may nevertheless be purchased in this country before you set out on your travels (provided you are a resident of the European Economic Area).

Although the actual level of cover provided may of course vary from one insurer to another, there are UK-based specialist providers who offer supplementary liability insurance o up to $1 million – which you might find a comfort in facing even the stiffest of third party claims if you were to be unfortunate enough to be involved in an incident with your rental vehicle whilst in North America.

Furthermore, such specialist insurance providers also typically include a further core element of cover for anyone renting a car in North America – insurance for the vehicle itself. This come in the shape of something called a collision damage waiver (or often just CDW) and is an agreement whereby the owner of the vehicle – namely the rental company – agrees to waive its right to charge you, the renter, the full price for any loss or damage sustained by the vehicle whilst it is being hired by you.

You might wish to note, however, that in the typical collision damage waiver agreement, the rental company still reserves the right to charge you an element of the costs of any loss or damage to the vehicle. In North America, this is typically called the “deductable” charge and might be effectively regarded as very similar to an insurance excess in this country.

Purchase of SLI insurance and CDW insurance from a UK-based specialist provider, however, may also prove a way of indemnifying yourself against any such excess or deductable charge.

Perhaps one of the principal reasons for this is not the list of risks covered in the agreement, but those that are excluded. After all, you are probably buying car insurance for car hire to protect yourself against the financial risk of loss or damage to the vehicle – it might be very important to know, therefore, when any insurance is there to back you up and when you are likely to be on your own to foot the bill.

So what are some of the typical exclusions in car insurance for car hire agreements?

• Excess – an excess, of course, is not so much an exclusion as a typical insurance device to help share the burden of risk between the insurer and the insured. The excess amount is the first part of any claim that remains entirely your own responsibility. If the claim totals less than the excess, you may find yourself footing the entire repair bill; if it is more, then you might forfeit the whole of the excess.

What might take you aback is the size of the typical car hire insurance excess. It is likely to run to several hundreds of pounds and, in some parts of the world, might well exceed more than the equivalent of a thousand pounds.

• More surprises – you might also be surprised to discover that some parts of the rental vehicle itself are typically excluded from the insurance agreement. For example, these areas might include damage to the roof or to the underside of your hire car, damage to the wheels or tyres, and the damage or breakage of the vehicle’s windows. The exclusion of these specific areas of risk might come as a costly surprise to some hirers.

What’s to be done?

If the size of the standard excess or the extent of exclusions is a concern and you want to reduce your potential exposure to greater expense, you might wish to consider additional or “top-up” insurance. Indeed, this might be offered by your car rental company when you are making the reservation – though in some cases, the daily rates for such cover may typically add a significant premium to your total rental bill.

An alternative might be to arrange such excess insurance before you even set out. There are specialist providers of insurance packages that offer comprehensive protection for any excess that might be included in your car rental agreement wherever in the world you might be driving. In addition to protecting your exposure to a potentially very expensive share in any bill for loss or damage to the rented vehicle, cover is also typically extended to damage to areas of the vehicle otherwise excluded from the standard car hire insurance agreement.

This additional car insurance for car hire in practically any part of the world might save you a considerable sum by protecting the excess which you might otherwise have to pay.

• Assuming that you have seen a doctor about your injuries, your next call may be to a lawyer. Car accident claims can be made a surprisingly long time after an accident, but after a certain period of time you may not be able to claim, typically 3 years. For this reason you should call a claims company as soon as possible. Contacting a lawyer as soon as possible means that the accident is fresh in your mind and it will be easier to link any injuries you suffered to the accident.
• An assessment of your claim. Whichever accident lawyers you choose, the first thing they will do is assess your chances of being successful and receiving compensation. By taking details of the circumstances of the accident, and speaking to you in great detail about how events unfolded that day, they will be able to give you a realistic assessment about your chances of success.
• If your lawyers decide that your accident compensation claim is likely to succeed they will take even more details about the accident from you. Aside from details about the accident itself, you also need to provide information about how the accident and your injuries have affected your day to day life, including much the accident has cost you in terms of loss of earnings.
• Your lawyers may be able to give general advice about the compensation you should receive. There may be a “tariff” of standard amounts of compensation awarded for particular injuries and this will form the basis for the negotiation of any compensation settlement. The final compensation amount will be tailored to your individual circumstances.
• There is normally negotiation about how much compensation you receive. Assuming that your accident involved another driver who was insured, the negotiations will typically take place with the other driver’s insurers. If liability is admitted they normally offer a sum of compensation and negotiate with your lawyers about how much you should receive. Only rarely does negotiation fail and the claim proceeds to court.

Adequate insurance is protection for you and other road users, of course, whilst a minimum level of third party cover is a legal requirement in most parts of the world. Even the most basic, essential level of cover, however, typically accounts for a significant proportion of your rental costs.

Even so, you might find that the car hire insurance you have bought as a standard part of the rental agreement still leaves you exposed to a number of effectively uninsured risks.

The problems

The biggest of these is likely to be the excess on your car hire insurance agreement (or Collision Damage Waver, CDW, as it’s likely to be called if your vehicle rental is in North America).

As an uninsured risk, an insurance excess represents the amount you may have to pay in the event of loss or damage to your rented vehicle. If the cost of any repairs is less than the excess amount, you may need to pay the whole of the repair bill yourself; if the cost of repairs (or even the replacement of the vehicle if it is written off or stolen) is more than the excess, you may nevertheless have to pay the full amount of that excess.

Compounding the problem is the fact that the excess written into many car rental insurance agreements typically runs to many hundreds or even more than a thousand pounds. In the event of an accident or theft of your hired vehicle, therefore, you may face considerable expense.

Moreover, damage to certain parts of a hire car is typically excluded from the standard form of insurance sold by the rental company. Your insurance therefore might not cover any damage, therefore, to:

• the wheels or tyres;
• the roof;
• the underside of the vehicle; or
• the windows or glass.

The solutions

A typical way of resolving the problem of uninsured risks such as these, of course, is to arrange additional insurance for them.

This is precisely what many car rental companies might offer you – additional insurance to cover the amount of any excess on the principal cover.

Although this might appear to be the ideal solution and may be conveniently arranged when you pick up the hire car, it may in some cases typically add a significantly increased premium to the cost of renting the vehicle.

These are specialist insurance providers, however, who offer the option of arranging comprehensive cover for any excess (including damage to those parts of a rental vehicle otherwise excluded from the rental company’s insurance). Not only might this prove a more attractively priced solution, but may also give you the security of a protected excess whenever and wherever in the world you might next need car hire insurance.

The answer is likely to give you somewhat more to consider, rather than less. To illustrate the wide range of risks that might be covered when you rent a vehicle you may wish to consider the protection offered by independent, purpose designed car hire insurance:

• although a basic minimum level of third party cover might be included in the rental agreement to meet local legal requirements, it may still leave you responsible for a large proportion of the cost of loss or damage to the vehicle itself. Sometimes called a Collision Damage Waver (or simply, CDW) this additional element of vehicle rental insurance offers financial indemnity against accidental loss or damage;

• although the third party cover included in the rental company’s insurance agreement might meet the basic legal requirement, it may still leave you vulnerable to potentially very expensive claims from third parties. Independent, purpose designed vehicle rental insurance might typically include Supplementary Liability Insurance (or simply, SLI), to significantly increase the level of your protection against such third party claims;

• car rental companies, in most parts of the world, typically offer insurance to protect you against the risks of loss or damage to the vehicle you are hiring. The problem is that many such agreements also typically include a significantly large excess. If loss or damage does occur, therefore, you might still be faced with a substantial bill to pay. Independent, purpose designed insurance might offer you full indemnity against any such excess;

• the theft of your hire car clearly represents a significant loss of a typically high value commodity. Yet theft is a risk that might not be adequately covered in the standard Collision Damage Waiver you have bought as part of your rental agreement. Independent, purpose designed insurance typically includes protection, therefore, against just such a risk;

• damage to certain areas of your hired vehicle – such as the roof, underside, tyres and windows – might be specifically excluded from typical forms of rental car insurance. Once again, therefore, independent, purpose designed excess insurance might bring such damage within the scope of the protection you desire.

The independent, purpose designed excess insurance talked about here is available from specialist providers based in the UK. There are various options available, providing the extensive cover described above for Europe, or for North America (the United States and Canada), or for the rest of the world. Furthermore, the vehicle rental insurance offered by such providers may also give you the option of single-trip protection or a policy that is valid for up to a whole year and good for multiple car rental agreements during that period.

The case for additional insurance …

The biggest single reason for arranging additional insurance for your hire car is because of the widespread practice of attaching a large excess on typical car rental insurance policies. Although the precise amount of the excess might depend on the type of rental car you have chosen and the particular part of the world in which you are going to be driving, the excess is typically many hundreds of pounds and might even exceed the equivalent of well over a thousand pounds.

You might want to bear in mind that an excess is more likely to be called the “deductable” in North American terminology.

Additional insurance to cover your risk in assuming responsibility for any such excess or deductable is something you may consider prudent.

… and its additional benefits

An excess car rental insurance policy, however, might typically offer even more than just the protection of your liability for paying an excess on any loss or damage to the hired vehicle:

• Theft – adequate protection against the potential theft of the rented vehicle might be a consideration, especially in North America, for example, where a standard Collision Damage Waiver might provide inadequate cover against such a risk. Independently arranged car hire excess insurance, however, might typically provide this important safeguard;

• SLI – with the drivers of rental vehicles in North America particularly in mind, once again, hire car excess insurance policies might typically incorporate Supplementary Liability Insurance (SLI) to increase the level of cover available for meeting the potentially substantial sums involved in settling some claims by third parties;

• Damage – many car hire insurance agreements typically exclude cover for damage to certain areas of the vehicle (most commonly, the windows, roof, underside and tyres). A simple excess insurance policy, however, might incorporate cover for these areas as a standard feature.

A particular feature of the typical car hire excess insurance policy is the option for purchasing a single policy that continues to provide cover (with all of the benefits described above) throughout the year, thus making it suitable for multiple car rental periods throughout the year. Although there may be a limit to the duration of any single hire period, the car rental insurance excess package continues to allow an unlimited number of rentals during the year.

The excess

As with many other forms of insurance, the cover that might be included in the typical car rental agreement also incorporates an excess. An excess is effectively an uninsured risk and therefore one for which you continue to take full responsibility.

It means that, in the event of any insurance claim, you are responsible for payment of the first part of that claim, up to the limit of the excess amount.

In other words, if the cost of repairs or replacement for any loss or damage is less than the amount of the excess, you may be liable for the whole of that cost but if the cost exceeds the amount of the excess then your responsibility is limited to the amount of excess alone, with the insurance covering the remainder.

An excess is not an unusual element of many insurance policies, therefore, but in the case of car excess insurance for your rental vehicle it may typically represent a quite considerable amount of money.

Protecting the excess

Because of the size of the excess typically attached to many car rental insurance agreements, it has become relatively common for car hire companies to offer a supplementary insurance package – or top-up – to protect your liability for the excess itself. This effectively insures the otherwise uninsured risks to which the rented vehicle might be liable.

The problem remains, however, that such car excess insurance offered by many rental companies is typically priced at a cost that you might find prohibitive.

What might prove a more affordable alternative, therefore, is to arrange insurance for any such excess separately, through an independent specialist hire car insurance provider. In some cases, purchasing from such a source may bring a number of benefits:

• the separate excess insurance may be purchased in advance of your trip and even in advance of your making any particular hire car reservation;

• wherever in the world you might be planning to hire a car, from whatever rental company, the excess insurance may remain valid. If an accident occurs and you need to pay any excess to the rental company, this may be reclaimed through your specialist hire car excess insurer upon your return home;

• not only might such cover be arranged in advance of a particular trip, but specialist providers also typically offer the option of purchasing car excess insurance that remains valid for the whole year and covers you for an unlimited number of car rental agreements throughout that year (although there may be limits on the duration of any individual hire period).