Top Tips To Keep In Mind

To complicate matters still further, some elements of the cover you need might not be revealed until the last minute, when you are already at the car rental desk waiting to check out the particular vehicle you have chosen.

The following tips might help you negotiate what might otherwise be the minefield of hire car insurance:

• Planning ahead is typically one of the ways of ensuring you end up getting what you want ie. goods or services that meet your expectations. Car rental insurance is no exception.
• At Bettersafe we are here to help you satisfy that quest, with our specialist car hire excess insurance policies that give comprehensive cover.
• Underwritten at Lloyds, our policies are entirely independent of any hire car company, with our sole concern being to provide reliable and dependable protection against the risks you take on when renting a car.
• These are policies you are able to arrange before setting foot from your own front door and require payment of just a single premium to safeguard the excess cover on any vehicle you are about to hire, in practically any country of the world.
• These may be important considerations when you think about the alternatives.
• You might decide, for example, that you want no more to do with insurance over and above that is already included in the price of the rental package.
• It is an option that typically leaves you exposed to any shortfall in the inclusive insurance, in particular, the excess (or deductible as it might be described in the United States) which might be as much as £2,000 – or even more if you are renting a particularly high-end vehicle.
• The presence of such an excess gives many car rental companies the opportunity of persuading you to buy their excess insurance.
• It is an opportunity on which few companies miss out because of the attractive profit which may be made on such sales.
• As frequent complaints in the media make clear, however, the excess insurance (link for USA and America) may prove costly.
• For more comprehensive levels of cover – at a typically more competitive rate – you might prefer to buy Collision Damage Waiver (CDW), Supplemental Liability Insurance (SLI) and excess insurance as a standalone policy from UK-based specialists such as ourselves.
• Such policies may be bought online before you travel and are valid wherever in the world you may be travelling* and need to hire a car.
• Our policies cover areas of the vehicle often typically excluded by the rental car hire company’s cover, such as the undercarriage, windscreen, roof and tyres and even events such as misfuelling.
• More than that, you may also choose an annual excess protection policy which is valid the whole year through and may relieve you from any further worries about excess on your hire car insurance whenever and however many times you decide to travel.

As far as top tips go, of course, it is difficult to be exhaustive. Your own needs and requirements, matched to the deals on offer from the relevant car rental companies, may make some of your choices difficult. But the suggestions above may help you avoid some of the more obvious pitfalls.