Is Insurance Included?
Unfortunately accidents happen, whether it’s your fault or not and sometimes there is very little that you can do to prevent them and that’s what insurance is for. Insurers pay out for the damages of your vehicle and 3rd parties obviously dependent on what has happened, never the less it’s a constant worry but what happens if you have an accident in a rental car? What are you covered for and what are you liable for?
We can assure you that when you hire a car you are insured but there are various different terms and conditions to this which make it hard to understand, so here is a bit of a breakdown of the options available.
Standard Insurance
I would say the majority of our customers go for this option around (55-60%) and this is the standard insurance that when you hire a car you drive away with. It works in pretty much the way your own insurance works, in your terms when you book a car you will notice that you have an excess which means in an event of an accident and damage to the car you will pay that as a maximum for example if a car is written off you won’t pay its full cost only the excess.
But for example if you have dinted the car and they need to fix that then you will only be charged the amount for the repair.
The problem with this however is car hire companies often have really high excesses usually between £500-1000. You can choose to lower this however which you can find below.
Extra Insurance
Some people opt for this, it’s an extra daily cost on top of your rental which reduces your excess to zero or close to zero depending on the supplier. This like all the other options has its positive and negative points.
Positively it covers you and majority of the time gets you a zero excess meaning that if you damage the car in any way you are not liable. Well this isn’t always the case, extra insurance often doesn’t cover damage to windscreen, tires and the under carriage so that is something to be aware of.
As a negative point it costs a lot, it can sometimes exceed the cost of your hire in extreme situations.
Excess Reimbursement
What this policy does is that it covers you in the event of an accident, however you have to pay out originally. This means that if an accident does happen you will originally have to pay the damage out of your own pocket, which is the negative but the positive is that once you have done this you will be reimbursed by the company you arranged your policy with.
Many people go for this option as you can either opt for a small daily cost for a short rental or even pay for an annual policy. We suggest that you explore your options, but if you want to know more click here.
Got Travel Insurance?
Often people don’t even realise it but you may have your excess covered by your travel insurance. Please before booking a car we urge you to check through your insurance documents as there are many people that purchase extra insurance that simply don’t need it! If you contact us we can verify if your insurance does cover you or not.
Contact Us
If you still have any other questions about the insurance included with car hire then our reservation agents will be happy to fully inform you on everything that you need to know. You can get in contact with them by calling +44 (0)113 880 0748 or emailing at [email protected] and they will get right back to you answering any questions that you may have.
