Car hire - excesses

[jimmydash]

I need a car from Glasgow airport for 4 days. Not rented for quite a while. Enterprise looked good until I found the excess was £1600 but if I pay £20 a day it comes down to £700. Is this the norm?

[kiethton]

Unfortunately so.

Best way is to take the standard hire car rate and then get a separate excess insurance policy for a fraction of the cost.

[Truckosaurus]

Yes, but you can instead buy an annual policy online for around £40

[colin79666]

As above, get yourself standalone excess cover either for the trip or if you hire often then an annual policy. It does mean you will probably have a large preauthorisation on your credit card and it does mean paying up if you have a prang them claiming back but the savings are huge and chances of needing it are small so worth the effort imo.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-car... (scroll down)

[john2443]

How do Enterprise justify this - 4 days x £20=80 and still a £700 excess v annual policy £40 with hopefully a small excess.

Just sounds like a complete rip off - if they charged £5 a day and £250 excess that would sound believable but £20 and £700 just seems off the scale mad!

[MOMACC]

If this is a business trip a good travel insurance policy will provide excess cover as standard.

[AndySheff]

john2443 said:

How do Enterprise justify this - 4 days x £20=80 and still a £700 excess v annual policy £40 with hopefully a small excess.

Just sounds like a complete rip off - if they charged £5 a day and £250 excess that would sound believable but £20 and £700 just seems off the scale mad!

It is mad. A few years ago it was about £5 a day for collision damage waiver. It's gone up and up.
I always use a seperate policy.

[MrJuice]

Best £15 I ever spent. I used a third party excess waiver company

Saved me £900 in 2012

[jimmydash]

Thanks everybody, I bought an annual, Europe, excess policy from icarhireinsurance.com - £43

[x5tuu]

jimmydash said:

Thanks everybody, I bought an annual, Europe, excess policy from icarhireinsurance.com - £43

Just for awareness / future reference quite a few of the annual excess policies won't pay out for certain hire companies, like the thieving bar stewards that are Green Motion