Decent car hire excess cover?

[pidsy]

Hiring a car in Greece later in the summer and want to get excess cover insurance.

Comparison sites throw up plenty of offerings at vastly different costs.

Any recommendations??

[vikingaero]

I think insurance4carhire was one of the originals and has since been taken over by Swinron. If you Google you'll see lots of recommendations. Most excess firms exclude Greenmotion and some holiday websites are refusing to list Greenmotion.

[pidsy]

Thanks.

[Redline88]

I’ve used and claimed via insurance4carhire as recommended above. Really good service and would happily recommend them.

[Bizzarini]

Went with Swinton for car hire xs in Sicily..£31...a month ago.
Was not accepted by the hire company at Catania airport

Eventually paid £198 to include another driver and to cover all costs above £600 in the event of an accident
The hire company took the £600 from our account on Day 1 of 8.
The car was returned undamaged and the £600 refunded

The pick-up took 2 hours while all this was sorted as they would not accept a John Lewis credit card
Luckily we had a Monzo card with us.

We went for the cheapest car hire company ( 50% less than Hertz) and got a 2023 Peugeot 2004
It was a hassle but as I always tell moaners..'we could live in Gaza'

Edited by Bizzarini on Tuesday 9th July 12:35

[fourstardan]

Bizzarini said:

Went with Swinton for car hire xs in Sicily..£31...a month ago.
Was not accepted by the hire company at Catania airport

Eventually paid £198 to include another driver and to cover all costs above £600 in the event of an accident
The hire company took the £600 from our account on Day 1 of 8.
The car was returned undamaged and the £600 refunded

The pick-up took 2 hours while all this was sorted as they would not accept a John Lewis credit card
Luckily we had a Monzo card with us.

We went for the cheapest car hire company ( 50% less than Hertz) and got a 2023 Peugeot 2004
It was a hassle but as I always tell moaners..'we could live in Gaza'

Edited by Bizzarini on Tuesday 9th July 12:35

What do you mean not accepted, it's got nothing to do with the hire company.

[maz8062]

When hiring cars abroad I don’t bother buying 3rd party excess cover, I just rock up at the car hire desk and buy what they offer to reduce the excess to zero. Yes you can buy a standalone policy, but I’ve been had too many times so don’t even bother.

[Rough101]

I use reducemyexcess.com

As above, it’s nothing to do with the hire company, what happens is that they charge your credit card as normal and then you apply to the excess insurer to recover it.

Annual policy costs about half of hire desk price for a week.

[Bizzarini]

Apparently in the 'small print' it said waiver cover had to be purchased at the time of hire car collection and payment

[fourstardan]

Bizzarini said:

Apparently in the 'small print' it said waiver cover had to be purchased at the time of hire car collection and payment

Yes but you did when you bought the car hire excess though? Its easy to get bullied into these things at desks after a long flight and you just wanting to enjoy your holiday I know.

I've put the ludicrous refundable deposit down on the car hire but the Car hire excess company will be the ones paying for the ludicrous excess they charge.

[pidsy]

vikingaero said:

I think insurance4carhire was one of the originals and has since been taken over by Swinron. If you Google you'll see lots of recommendations. Most excess firms exclude Greenmotion and some holiday websites are refusing to list Greenmotion.

Been trying to get their page to load since yesterday.
No luck.

[MrBen.911]

Some hire companies will say literally anything to get you to buy their cover, and most of it is drivel.

The important thing to remember if you have your own cover, is that is nothing to do with the hire company. You just tell them that you will take the risk of the highest excess - no need to tell them about your insurance.

You will of course need to guarantee the excess on your credit card - some companies actually take this and then return it, others just block the amount on your card.

As long as you understand the position and are firm on it, you generally have no issues.

[grumbas]

MrBen.911 said:

Some hire companies will say literally anything to get you to buy their cover, and most of it is drivel.

The important thing to remember if you have your own cover, is that is nothing to do with the hire company. You just tell them that you will take the risk of the highest excess - no need to tell them about your insurance.

You will of course need to guarantee the excess on your credit card - some companies actually take this and then return it, others just block the amount on your card.

As long as you understand the position and are firm on it, you generally have no issues.

I've found it's generally the cheaper firms that are most aggressive on the upsell of their own cover.

I've had one once pretty much refuse to release the car until they'd gone through their full sales pitch despite telling them very clearly I didn't want or need it.

They also tend to be the worst for finding some sort of minor damage on return.

The big names seem content to mention it and move on quickly. They seem to have a different attitude to damage too, I've pointed out damage on collection not noted on the condition report that others have charged for to be shown it was too insignificant on their charging matrix.

Generally I've been able to find a car with a big name for only 10-15% more than the cheap providers and buy an excess policy just in case. The big names are normally nearer the terminal and have shorter queues too!

[RizzoTheRat]

maz8062 said:

When hiring cars abroad I don’t bother buying 3rd party excess cover, I just rock up at the car hire desk and buy what they offer to reduce the excess to zero. Yes you can buy a standalone policy, but I’ve been had too many times so don’t even bother.

Hire car companies own insurance is usually around £15/day, which gets expensive pretty quickly compared to the £80ish/year I pay to Cover4Rentals.
I got charged for a scratch to a hire car in Greece a couple of years ago and claimed it back of them pretty quickly.

[MrBen.911]

grumbas said:

I've found it's generally the cheaper firms that are most aggressive on the upsell of their own cover.

Yes, sometimes that is true, but seems to vary a lot. My most recent hire was a basic car on a cheap deal from LocAuto at Trieste airport - they were brilliant, mentioned the upsells, I said no, and then moved on to offering me three different makes of car, which did I want? If only all hire experiences were like that!

I suspect the location helps - Trieste is a tiny airport and doesn't have too many stroppy tourists, so it's much easier than say Malaga which is staffed by 'battle-hardened' rental agents!

[Notsofastfrank]

I used http://icarhireinsurance.com/ recently. Competitively priced with very little limitation. Very easy to arrange and understand. They even followed up after the end of the hire period to ask if I needed to make a claim.

[Boringvolvodriver]

Notsofastfrank said:

I used http://icarhireinsurance.com/ recently. Competitively priced with very little limitation. Very easy to arrange and understand. They even followed up after the end of the hire period to ask if I needed to make a claim.

I have used these many times - sometimes with an annual policy- never had an issue although never had to claim fortunately

[mmm-five]

Mine was about £50 for an annual policy with Questor for upto £10,000 excess.

Never had to claim, so can't comment on that part of the policy.

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.questor-insur...

[HocusPocus]

This https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-car...

[pidsy]

Thanks all.
Looking at the sites listed.