Hiring A Car? You Need Car Hire Insurance.

Hiring A Car?

If you are hiring a car, adequate insurance is a necessity rather than a choice. But with a little planning and forethought, it might be less of a headache than you first thought – and doing just a little advance preparation may leave you completely free to enjoy the rest of the holiday.

Third-Party Insurance

The reason for your needing car hire insurance is really very simple – practically anywhere in the world you are likely to hire a car, the local law requires a basic minimum level of insurance cover to protect the interests of other road users and members of the public whose property you may damage or who may suffer personal injury as a result of your driving.
 
These are the third parties who have the reassurance of knowing that third party insurance on your part is designed to meet their claims for compensation in the event of your negligence.

Supplemental Liability Insurance

In some parts of the world – the United States and Canada in particular – the bare minimum of third party insurance which you are required to hold when renting a car may be inadequate to meet more sizeable claims from third parties, especially in countries where litigation to establish blame may be commonplace.
 
As a discussion on the travel website Trip Advisor suggests, there is some confusion about whether Supplemental Liability Insurance (SLI) is obligatory – it is not, but may add a considerable degree of reassurance and protection (typically up to at least $1 million in the event of a third party claim.

Accidental Damage Insurance And Collision Damage Waivers

In the UK and many parts of Europe, insurance against most forms of accidental damage to your hire car is included in the rental price.
 
If you are hiring a car in North America, however, you are likely to find this type of insurance described as a Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) and it is your option whether or not to buy it.
 
Protection against high third party claims and accidental damage may not be obligatory, but may clearly make sense when faced with the alternative of meeting claims or repair bills from your own pocket.
 
Although these are insurance policies that you might buy from the car rental company, you may find that you get a more comprehensive and competitively priced policy by buying from an independent hire car insurance specialist based in the UK.
 
Here at Bettersafe, for instance, we have policies specifically designed for those who are going to be driving in the Americas or the Caribbean which include both Supplemental Liability Insurance (SLI) and Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) as standard.

Car Hire Excess Insurance

You may also want to ask us about our policies for those driving in other parts of the world – including the UK and Europe – for protecting the excess that is typically applied by the insurance cover that comes as part of your car rental package.
 
Since the excess may be anything up to £1,000 – or even more if you are renting a particularly high-end vehicle – excess insurance is an optional form of protection that you might seriously consider buying.
 
Once again, it is insurance which you are likely to be offered as an extra by the car rental company, but you may find more competitively priced and comprehensive cover from a car hire excess insurance specialist such as ourselves.