Car hire and excess cover
Discussion
Have not hired a car for ages, just wondering if this is how it works:
I drive away but under the agreement there is a £1500 or so excess on any damage to the car. For this I can buy additional insurance so the excess is covered.
Is the excess cover guaranteed or could I get a bill say for £500 and the excess insurers feel it is unjustified/too expensive for the work done so sorry son, no payment from us?
Anyone know through actual experience?
I drive away but under the agreement there is a £1500 or so excess on any damage to the car. For this I can buy additional insurance so the excess is covered.
Is the excess cover guaranteed or could I get a bill say for £500 and the excess insurers feel it is unjustified/too expensive for the work done so sorry son, no payment from us?
Anyone know through actual experience?
You can usually get cheaper excess cover from third party companies (cheap annual policies if you do a lot of hiring, compared to buying it each time from the rental company). They will also cover things like tyres which the rental companies often won't.
Search online & companies will come up like Questor.
(That is not a specific recommendation though).
Search online & companies will come up like Questor.
(That is not a specific recommendation though).
vonhosen said:
You can usually get cheaper excess cover from third party companies (cheap annual policies if you do a lot of hiring, compared to buying it each time from the rental company). They will also cover things like tyres which the rental companies often won't.
Search online & companies will come up like Questor.
(That is not a specific recommendation though).
Thanks, appreciatedSearch online & companies will come up like Questor.
(That is not a specific recommendation though).
Another vote for Questor
Interestingly they have companies they wont indemnify you against on their website - fill in the gaps yourself - and when Ive been given the hard sell at the desk of local hire companies and shown them the Questor certificate they just shut up and dont give me any more hassle or hard sell or grief on returning
Cheers
Maybe I am a bit jaded by having to deal with these people, but.......
On a parallel subject, I always photograph the car from every angle before driving off, and check the sheet they give me in detail against the damage on the car. I go back to the desk and protest at length in front of all other customers if there is any damage not listed.
I have arrived at airports before now, gone to collect the supposedly unmarked vehicle, and been presented with a car with £2000 worth of damage on it.
Only conclusion I have come to is that they are hoping you have to be somewhere in a hurry and won't check.
Never trust the car hire companies,
They have your credit card details from when you booked and are not frightened of using them and arguing the toss afterwards. Afterwards is too late to prove anything is not as they say it is.
On a parallel subject, I always photograph the car from every angle before driving off, and check the sheet they give me in detail against the damage on the car. I go back to the desk and protest at length in front of all other customers if there is any damage not listed.
I have arrived at airports before now, gone to collect the supposedly unmarked vehicle, and been presented with a car with £2000 worth of damage on it.
Only conclusion I have come to is that they are hoping you have to be somewhere in a hurry and won't check.
Never trust the car hire companies,
They have your credit card details from when you booked and are not frightened of using them and arguing the toss afterwards. Afterwards is too late to prove anything is not as they say it is.
David A said:
numtumfutunch said:
Another vote for Questor
Interestingly they have companies they wont indemnify you against on their website - fill in the gaps yourself
Cheers
Can’t find that - maybe because I’m looking on the phone. Can you link please. Interestingly they have companies they wont indemnify you against on their website - fill in the gaps yourself
Cheers
They've gone!
I've not had to use them since the pandemic however the website was very clear that they wouldn't cover a couple of companies which were often slagged off online. One was European and the other based in Birmingham
Our only holiday with car rental since the pandemic was to the US where I used to use Questor to avoid $$$$$$$ worth of add ons which Avis now bundle all in
I hire from Enterprise every week
Most hires go on my business insurance but short hires I put on theirs
You really need to pay the extra to bring the excess down if its £1000 and you put a 50 quid dent in they will charge you the full grand until the repair is made then return the remadiner
I pushed the pallet truck off the tail lift and into the rear light it made a small hole and I was charged the £200 excess as I reduced it I would have had to pay the full grand had I not took the extra cover . The 200 quid was returned 3 months later for some reason they never charged me
Enterprise are pretty good they don't rip you off on invented damage we never take pictures of vehicles there is quite a bit of trust and I have been a customer for 25 years
Don't take insurance from excess suppliers unless you are using your own normal business use policy ie I have my own fleet cover.
and now its time for the resident morons to tell me I'm wrong ........Sorry just thought I would beat them to it this morning
Most hires go on my business insurance but short hires I put on theirs
You really need to pay the extra to bring the excess down if its £1000 and you put a 50 quid dent in they will charge you the full grand until the repair is made then return the remadiner
I pushed the pallet truck off the tail lift and into the rear light it made a small hole and I was charged the £200 excess as I reduced it I would have had to pay the full grand had I not took the extra cover . The 200 quid was returned 3 months later for some reason they never charged me
Enterprise are pretty good they don't rip you off on invented damage we never take pictures of vehicles there is quite a bit of trust and I have been a customer for 25 years
Don't take insurance from excess suppliers unless you are using your own normal business use policy ie I have my own fleet cover.
and now its time for the resident morons to tell me I'm wrong ........Sorry just thought I would beat them to it this morning
Edited by jeremyh1 on Sunday 16th July 08:08
To answer the OP's Q rather than other opening debates.
There are 3 ways you can get cover or reduce the excess or even remove the excess.
The most expensive of these is to get full cover through the rent company, which will even sometimes double the cost, and then there is no come back, no excess, just walk away if something happens.
The rental companies sometimes (more frequently abroad) offer an intermediate cover where for a more nominal amount the excess is (for instance) halved. I had to do this once when renting in Italy and the excess was more than my CC limit (at the time I just had a nominal £1k limit and it as only used for renting) this left an excess of around £600 uncovered by them.
If you rent through an intermediary/price comparison site then they will often have an excess cover policy which will mean that you still have the excess & can still be charged, but then you claim back on the policy afterwards, these will be a handful of pounds a day.
Then there is the annual policies which operate the same (pay & claim back) which typically come in around £40/45 per year from places like "car hire excess", who I have used for many years.
If you go through either meercats/money supermarket/MSE etc there are lots of them & they are generally all about the same, if you rent a few times a year I would highly recommend them.
There are 3 ways you can get cover or reduce the excess or even remove the excess.
The most expensive of these is to get full cover through the rent company, which will even sometimes double the cost, and then there is no come back, no excess, just walk away if something happens.
The rental companies sometimes (more frequently abroad) offer an intermediate cover where for a more nominal amount the excess is (for instance) halved. I had to do this once when renting in Italy and the excess was more than my CC limit (at the time I just had a nominal £1k limit and it as only used for renting) this left an excess of around £600 uncovered by them.
If you rent through an intermediary/price comparison site then they will often have an excess cover policy which will mean that you still have the excess & can still be charged, but then you claim back on the policy afterwards, these will be a handful of pounds a day.
Then there is the annual policies which operate the same (pay & claim back) which typically come in around £40/45 per year from places like "car hire excess", who I have used for many years.
If you go through either meercats/money supermarket/MSE etc there are lots of them & they are generally all about the same, if you rent a few times a year I would highly recommend them.
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