Your Travel Planner

Travel Tips: Saving on Car Hire Excess Insurance

Your Travel Planner says: Check out car hire excess insurance from standalone providers and save some money.

Comparing car hire quotes for your holiday isn’t always as straightforward as you may think.

In the UK and most other countries apart from the USA, car rental companies include Collision Damage Waiver, Theft and Third Party insurance cover in their rental price. However, amount of excess you’d have to pay if your hire car got damaged, can be surprisingly high.

For example, a quick check today shows the excess for a medium compact car in Italy this summer with Avis is 850 EUR for Vehicle Damage and 1000 EUR for Vehicle Theft.

Car rental companies always offer an opportunity to cover your excess when you pick up your car, but this can sometimes cost a hefty £9 per day, which is a huge proportion of the cost of the hire itself.

So here’s a travel tip from Your Travel Planner: look into getting this additional insurance from separate standalone providers and save some money.

You can get additional excess cover from as little as £1.90 per day (for Europe) from insurers such as insurance4carhire, Car Hire Excess and Worldwide Insure. Check out the terms and conditions to see which policy suits your requirements.

For longer trips or if you book car hire more than once in a year, annual policies are available from £39 per year for Europe. Again, check the terms and conditions for suitability, but the same insurers mentioned above also offer these annual policies.

These policies also cover you for damage to the vehicle’s windows, tyres, the under-carriage and the roof, which are often not covered by insurance bought through the car hire company.

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009, by and is filed under "Saving Money on 2009 Holidays, Travel Tips, Car Hire Excess Insurance ". You can leave a response here, or send a Trackback from your own site.