What Is Car Hire Excess Insurance?

If you own a car, you already almost certainly know that it is a legal requirement to have a minimum of third party insurance to drive on the roads or use it in any other public space.

Driving a hire car is no different – if you are driving it in the UK, the law requires that at the very least you hold third party insurance. If you are driving elsewhere in the world, local legislation is also likely to require a minimum of third party insurance, even though the level of cover you need may be considerably lower than in the UK.

But I Already Have Motor Insurance?

As the Association of British Insurers (ABI) makes clear, whether you are renting a car at home or abroad, the motor insurance on which you normally drive your own private car does not typically extend to any vehicle you hire.
 
For that reason, car rental companies generally include in the cost of hiring the vehicle an insurance package that not only provides the minimum legal requirement of third party cover but also some degree of insurance for accidental damage.

What Does Car Hire Insurance Cover?

The insurance you buy when hiring a car typically provides the same kind of protection as your normal motor policy, but for at least three important exceptions:

When you rent a car, the insurance package arranged by the rental company typically excludes damage to certain areas of the vehicle – usually, the windows, wheel, tyres, roof and underside.

You are probably used to arranging cover for your own car for the entire year, but when you are hiring, the insurance is typically applied at a daily rate – so that the longer the period of hire, the more you pay for the insurance, potentially doubling the overall cost of hiring a car.

You are probably used to an excess on your private motor insurance – the hire car company’s cover also comes with an excess, but one likely to be considerably larger than that to which you are accustomed, between £500 and £1,000.

It is this last which encourages customers to take the safety precaution of insuring the excess itself. It is known obviously enough as hire car excess insurance and is available from leading, independent specialist providers – such as those of us at Bettersafe.

If you have forgotten to arrange independent excess protection from a UK-based provider before you set off on your journey, you are nevertheless almost certain to be offered it by your car rental company when you arrive at the check-out desk.

It means that you may no longer be running quite such as great a risk of it costing a lot if you do have an accident, but there are still likely to be the same areas of the vehicle excluded from the cover – namely, the windows, roof, underside, wheel and tyres – and the cost of cover bought from car rental companies is widely regarded to be very expensive.