Collision Waiver Insurance for frequent car hire

Hello all,

Read a great bit of advice on a recent thread about buying third party damage waiver cover for regularly hiring cars.

I’ve been carless for a while now; just hiring a car from enterprise which has a shop down the road from me when I need it. It’s working out much cheaper (…but does make you more reluctant to take the car away for a weekend!!)

But… the excess on vehicle hire is something I often play roulette with. And I’m always paranoid about slashing a tire on a kerb or something like that.

I’ve had a look on google of some different policies, but I really wonder about the value of some of these policies from all these small companies.

What do you all think?

I always get one – it’s like £2 a day or something to cover you for the £500-£700 or whatever the hire car company might take off you. To me it’s a no-brainier. Never claimed mind, but if you pick a legit one I can’t see there’s much for them to quibble over – you provide invoice, they reimburse you.

I used this lot for a recent trip
https://www.icarhireinsurance.com/

Had to claim. Filled in the forms and got reimbursed within about 10 days.

Plenty of places will sell you an annual policy that would work out pretty cheap for multiple hire periods. The link above is a good one, there are a few more that specialise in it – Questor is another.

The only thing I noticed is that many policies do not cover van hire, just car hire. Van policies are a lot more expensive.

I have had car hire companies (specifically in the Canaries) taking money of a credit card when you didn’t take their CDW.

They give it back if you don’t have a ding, but it’s a bit of a shitty sales tactic.

I have had car hire companies (specifically in the Canaries) taking money of a credit card when you didn’t take their CDW.

They give it back if you don’t have a ding, but it’s a bit of a shitty sales tactic.

Just about every hire company does this if you don’t take their insurance. Usually just a pre-authorisation on the card though rather than actually taking the amount.

For the OP – as mentioned above, quite a few sites do single trip or annual policies – they are deposit refund schemes, so in the event of damage, you pay the car hire place and the insurance pays you back.

Just about every hire company does this if you don’t take their insurance.

Maybe it was the way they went about it, but it was the first time I’d had to do it (normally just say “no thanks”) and they were pretty pushy.

I hire cars for 5 days a week working away from home so have an annual policy with carhireexcess.com since using them I have not had to claim though.

Worth a look.

used these people for a number of years

https://www.worldwideinsure.com/car-hire-excess-insurance.php

I’ve not claimed but some friends did – several thousand euro’s damage and 100% friends fault but paid out promptly (like 10days or so) no problem

as said you will have to pay the excess to the car hire co and then claim so if funds tight/credit card near max that could be a problem

Just booked through this comparison site, so much cheaper than paying through the car hire companies.

Insurance4carhire are well established and have a good rep. They’ve been recommended in the money sections of the weekend papers over some of the smaller companies when it comes to sorting claims out.
Remember you will need to bring your credit card and the company will block up to Euro1000 on it

Yes – well worth it given that the excess can be 750 to 2K.

Remember to check for exclusions. Campervans for instance are not covered except by specific policies and even then they cover different things e.g. some don’t cover the roof, interior etc.

If you have Amex you get this for free on some cards too.

I use Questor for this, but have yet to make a claim. MoneySavingsometing dot com suggested them.

I had this. A great idea in theory, in practice it meant endless delay at the car hire places and as mentioned, having to give ridiculous sums of money over as a deposit – which they would then only accept on credit card, which I don’t have.

As I only hire infrequently now and don’t want to have to leave a couple of grand in my account for these deposits I don’t have it anymore. I think it’ll be one of these areas where regulation will step in shortly.