Renting a car comes with its numerous pros and cons, after a horrible experience with a car rental service, you will be delighted to leave the shop, but that’s not going to be the last time. You will certainly find yourself back in a car rental agencies, it could be because you don’t have a car of your own, your car is temporarily faulty, or you are on a business trip or vacation and would want to move around without taking public transportation. If you are renting in Europe, the basic decision you have to make before renting a car is whether or not to buy rental car insurance.
If you stay in Europe, or you are visiting Europe, you would know that one of the easiest ways of moving around is by renting a car, on the downside, getting suitable and affordable car insurance can be stressful; most times at the counter they always have a way of pressuring us into buying expensive insurance. In some rental situations, you may not need to purchase the car rental agency’s insurance, but the salesperson would make it seem necessary, and at the end of the day, you will end up spending hundreds on insurance you don’t need.
If you are about renting a car, don’t be in haste, you have first to gather information about the type of insurance needed, and how to avoid spending unnecessarily.
What You Need To Know
When you rent a car in Europe, it is ideal that the car is covered either by Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) or Loss Damage Waiver (LDW), the good news is there even a better coverage; buy an independent car hire excess waiver policy. In order not to get too ahead of ourselves, let’s start from the basis.
Before renting a car, you are expected to deposits a certain sum of money (deductible), the deductible will serve as collateral In case the car gets damaged, you and the rental company will pay for repairs. There is no fixed price for the deductible; it varies based on the dealership, and the value of the car you are hiring. Here’s how it works, if you deposited $500 before hiring a car and incurred damage of about $200, you’ll be paying for the complete repair. But if you deposited the same $500 but incurred damage of about $3000, you will not spend more than the money you initially deposited.
This is where independent car hire excess waiver policy comes in; They help you save hundreds of Euros that would have been paid on excess charges. If you buy an independent car hire excess waiver policy, it will protect from legal battles you and help save money.
Independent car hire excess waiver policy is a third party coverage, and it is more affordable than what rental companies charge. It offers what rental companies are offering, and more, damages to windows, light, car tires are not covered by CDW and LDW, but this third-party insurance will cover such damages.
Buying an independent car hire excess waiver policy gives you better value for lesser price.
Instead of CDW or LDW, that would cost you hundreds of Euro per week; you can buy an independent car hire excess waiver policy for less than 10 Euros per day.
With an independent car hire excess waiver policy you will still have to pay the usual deductible, but don’t worry, the third party insurance will refund you. For instance, you buy an independent car hire excess waiver policy through ABC agency, and your car gets damaged during the lease if the rental car company charges you $500 for repairs and $50 for an administrative charge. There’s no need to worry, submit a claim form to ABC agency, with an email containing all relevant documents. A good independent car hire company will refund €550 within a week.
With a third party independent car hire company, you’ll be saving thousands since it helps you recover the money spent on repairing your rented car. After they have to refund the money back to you, they will now deal directly with your insurance provider.
Some car rental services may claim not to recognize a third party insurance coverage, don’t worry about such rental services, since you are dealing directly with the third party hence you don’t need permission from the rental service company. The reason why most car rental companies frown against renters
Who buy an independent car hire excess waiver policy is because they want to trap you into using their Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) or Loss Damage Waiver (LDW).
