Mr. Athena and I will be renting a car for a few days during an upcoming trip to England. I’m doing my homework about it, and determined that my existing car insurance does not cover me outside the US or Canada, so we’ll need to purchase additional insurance coverage.
I can get it through the rental company, to the tune of $150-$200 for the 4 days we’ll need the car. That’s pricey! It pretty much doubles the cost of the rental.
Alternatively, one of my credit card companies tells me that any car rented with that card includes basic collision and loss insurance. It’s worldwide, and the nice agent assured me the car I rent in England would be covered, as long as I declined the coverage offered by the rental company.
However… I’m wondering if it’s as great as it sounds. Has anyone actually used that kind of coverage? I’d hate to rely on that coverage and find out there’s some tiny bit I didn’t anticipate and I’m not, in fact, covered. Or the red tape around putting in a claim is a real hassle. Or… something else. So I’m sorta kinda leaning towards paying the extra and getting the coverage from the agency because I would assume what they sell me does indeed cover the car they’re renting to me at the same time. But maybe I’m wrong?
I’ve heard differing things from different people/companies. When I’ve done most of Europe I’ve always just used my credit card, but Ireland and Scotland have both refused to take that insurance.
Last year for Scotland I ended up getting secondary insurance that said they would cover me when I rented the car. It was like $60 for a week. The car rental refused to accept that insurance. Also refused to rent me the car unless I had some sort of insurance. I’ve had the same thing happen in Ireland a couple of times, flat out refusal to accept the credit card for insurance.
When I went this year to Ireland I ended up just getting the insurance through the rental car place when I rented the car online. Came out much cheaper and easier. I know others have said their CC would work, but at least a couple of times I’ve been refused.
Careful with that: the rental companies generally offer TWO types of insurance. They offer the basic, legally-required insurance (what the card is offering may not be any better than that or even be worse), and they offer additional insurance for items not required by the law. Additionally, you may want to look into travel insurance: some of the policies out there include additional car coverage.
I don’t have any useful info to add, but when we rented a car in Greece in April, my wife (a Polish national with personal car insurance here in Krakow) wanted to get supplemental coverage, and it was only around an additional $60 for the week that we had the car.
This was with Enterprise. (the car itself was under $90 total)
I checked, in advance, with my credit card company (BofA) before renting in Germany; supposedly I was good to go. Got to the rental counter & that’s where I found out there was an issue. US insurance is vehicle-based. German is person-based. They wanted something from my CC company showing my name & the policy limits. The 24-hr CC assistance was only able to send over the generic marketing piece (you’re covered up to $____), which states limits but doesn’t show anything about how it’s tied to me.
I was trying to rent from the airport after landing, German morning time, which is, of course, middle of the night in the US. I took the car & paid for a day’s insurance then had to wait for the specific car rental dept in the US to get in before they could fax/email over a more personalized version of that marketing flyer which Enterprise then used as insurance for the remaining days of my rental.
I was in Cyprus (from the USA) in 2012 and Hertz would not rent me a car unless I either bought their 42 euros/day insurance or left a 10K euro deposit. They had not warned me of this in advance. They pointed out that I could simply abandon the car and head back to the USA and leave them in the lurch. I put the 10k deposit on my AMEX gold card (which provides fairly decent supplemental car insurance by itself) and they refunded it about a week after I left.
In Iceland last fall, we had to buy their insurance or pay a very large deposit. We paid the insurance, which was about $100 for the week of the rental.
To me, one issue that’s vital is documentation.
It doesn’t matter if you have legal insurance from your credit card company back home.
What does matter is that you can PROVE that you have legal insurance, at the critical moment when you need it–on the side of the road, in the middle of the night.
Especially if you’re in a country where you don’t speak the language.
If something happens, and a cop or a tow-truck driver asks to see your insurance, he’s not going to be impressed by a little card in your wallet with an American telephone number and nothing else.
I pay the extra fees at the local car rental desk, and get the printout in both English and the local language.
Yes, it’s expensive.
But I buy insurance for peace of mind.
It’s usually better then back home as its primary insurance not second to your auto policy, and it last longer, 30 days vs 2 weeks domestically. I rented a car in Germany for 2 weeks, came to about $20/day, so you may want to check around, try Kayak.
But back to your CC issue. Contact them and also ask if they can provide a statement of coverage to present to them. I needed that to rent the car or else I would have to buy their insurance which would have doubled the cost. Lucky they accepted a email from my CC company, but I had to wait. Just going further the letter basically states if anything happens to the car where it is totalled the CC company will buy them a entire new car at current market price.
Sorry to burst your peace of mind, but:
But the car is legally insured either way by the rental company - not you or what you bought. Your insurance that you got from them (or your CC) means nothing to the cop . That insurance you got is just between you and the rental co, not you and the ‘state’. The rental agreement will just show you are allowed to drive the car to the cop, the agreement you bought is how things will be handled between you and them.
We rent a car every year in the Caribbean from the same family owned company. Every year the woman checks off the “declines additional coverage” block, which I then initial.
One year I backed into a palm tree in a parking lot, denting the car pretty badly. I figured $500 as a fair assessment of the damages. So, when I returned the car I pointed out the damage and asked what I needed to sign. He looked over the damage and told me he had the afternoon off and could do the repair himself if I’d pay him $50 cash. I did. We were both very happy.
Which reminds me: in the EU and attached countries, you’re supposed to carry an European Report Statement (“the yellow and blue thing”), but rental companies often don’t give you one if you don’t ask for it. In case of accident, both parties are supposed to fill them up and exchange copies (the form is self-triplicating but always check that the bottom copy is truly readable); whether the cops are required to be called or not varies by location, severity of accident and whether anybody has decided to be a jerk, but the form is a must. The link above lets you download and print versions in several languages; if you choose to print your own copies remember that you need 3 in English.
Last summer I rented a car to drive through southwest Europe. Someone smashed out a window in Spain, it was backed into in a parking garage in Portugal, and I hit a pretty serious dip in France that damaged the lower portion of the front end. Total damage was like $3500 or so. I always use Amex Premium Car Insurance which costs only like 25 bucks per rental (not per day). They covered everything with no hassle. I love American Express!
It really depends on the credit card company and what they say. For overseas trips, I usually buy travel insurance and make sure that I get rental car insurance as part of that if I’m planning on renting a car. The terms are very clearly spelled out and I haven’t had a problem at the rental counter when I’ve had documentation.
A recent article (paywalled) in the Globe and Mail showing how much variation there is between credit cards, even when renting within one’s own country.