How To Save Money When Buying Car Hire Excess Insurance

If there is one sure-fire way to save money when buying practically any goods or services, it is simply to shop around before making the purchase.

When it comes to buying car hire excess insurance, however, many consumers seem to do just the opposite.
 
Here’s how:

- Some holidaymakers might get as far as the destination itself before deciding that they want to hire a car – if the decision even to rent a vehicle is left until this last minute, of course, there is precious little scope for shopping around for car hire excess insurance from local providers.

- The more forward-thinking traveller, of course, is likely to decide in advance to book the hire car that is needed for a holiday or business trip – there is time enough to choose the appropriate vehicle and compare rental prices from different companies and agents in the area you are visiting.

- What neither category of traveller might have considered, however, is the very high excess typically attached to the insurance package that comes with the hire car – perhaps as high as £1,500 or more.

- Car rental companies are notoriously slow in coming forward with that kind of information about the amount of excess and delays giving the advice until the customer is standing at the vehicle check out desk.

- When the customer is champing at the bit to get on with the holiday and has been suitably horrified by the potential excess they may have to pay, the rental company may only be too quick to offer excess insurance, and you may buy it without researching whether it is the most suitable cover for you.

- The failure to provide sufficient information at the time of booking and the sometimes hard-sell tactics employed by car rental companies in the UK and Europe has prompted special mention in the Codes of Conduct published both by the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) and its European counterpart, the European Car Rental Conciliation Service (ECRCS).

How To Save Money Buying Car Hire Excess Insurance:
 
You may be able to save yourself all this time, hassle and stress – not to mention the money – by remembering the importance of shopping around for your car hire excess insurance before you even leave home.
 
Your car rental company is by no means the only supplier – and is certainly unlikely to offer the most competitive price or, indeed, the most comprehensive excess cover.
 
Choose an entirely independent, UK-based specialist provider – such as those of us here at Bettersafe – however, and you are able to shop around at your heart’s content, until you find the cover you need, for the length of time you need it, in the part of the world you are going to be driving and at a price designed to ensure that you save yourself some money.
 
If you are a frequent traveller, you might cast your net even wider when shopping around by searching out from the same specialist providers annual multi-trip car excess protection, which gives you cover whenever you need it and however many times you need it during the course of the year.