Hihi,
can anyone suggest a cheap travel insurance which will give a good full cover for car rental excess purpose. It seems some don't cover some aspect and I don't want to be in the position to be stunned if something to happen during the car rental. Thanks for your help!
Travel insurance solely for purpose of car rental excess
Ceceilia on 26/06/2015 - 12:27
Comments
Westpac have first year free currently too, meaning you can get the card, use it for insurance purposes (With ALL of these cards you must prepay generally $500 on trip expenses, EG book your flight with said card) and then cancel it afterwards.
Voila, free insurance.
Note though, if something happens you have to pay the full excess to the rental company - then get reimbursed by the insurance company.
Don't have the credit card so need to buy a travel insurance…….i think this is cheaper than paying at the car rental which is $13-20ish per day as I will be hiring for 6-7days
.You still need to buy insurance for your rental car. Travel insurance only covers the excess portion of the rental car insurance.
It has standard cover but excess is $2750
Standard Loss or Damage cover is included in our rates and subject to the conditions of the rental agreement. Standard Cover covers damage to the hired vehicle in the event of an accident with another vehicle. ( Multi Vehicle Accident ) Sufficient funds must be available on the cardholders credit card at the time of rental to cover the Damage Liability Fee.
You "need" a Credit Card to Hire a car..
You don't want to be putting it on your Debit card cause they ask for a MASSIVE pre-approval ($5000 was a number floated about when I flashed my Debit card years ago)
The ABC's The Checkout has pointed out that rental car insurance offered by the hire company is not really worth the money. Would suggest the above if you can get a CC that has complimentary insurance.
ANZ credit cards have a very good domestic renal cover.
Renal cover-is that in case you hit the booze too hard on holiday and have kidney problems?
When it comes to international car rental, it is advisable to rely more on the rental company's insurance (ideally full comprehensive zero excess, it is actually standard in countries like USA for insurance to be included) rather than using your own travel insurance. Reason is that in the event of an accident, you want the rental company to settle it for you. All you need to do, is to get a new key and drive off with a new car after making the report.
If you had no insurance, it is extremely difficult for you to settle the claim internationally because you will have to send documents and crap over to and fro. If you take some limited liability insurance, you will still need to pay a large sum upfront and they will ask for your time to do stupid reports and shit. Moreover, after you are done over there, you will need to do your claim in Australia which is also a heck of a hassle.
Lastly, overseas rental companies can scam you into damage claims. I have had a rental company who charged my credit card excess and contacted me because of a "small chip on the windscreen". I asked for pictures, they say they work on the trust of the people on site. Well, what can I do? It is hard for me to fight a claim overseas. I had travel insurance but the amount charged is less than the excess to make a claim, so I have to fork out of pocket for this.
TL;DR. For car rental overseas, buy full car rental insurance for a stress free holiday. It is rare for travel insurance to cover comprehensively, most will have a $250 excess for claims.
thanks for the heads up….. It's for local car rental
I might be wrong, but I dont think you can buy travel insurance for a local car rental. Even if you use your credit card insurance, one of the activation condition is to charge the full amount of the interstate flight to the card first, before any rental car coverage.
You are wrong. The card policies vary, but all domestic travel insurance policies that can be purchased, that I have seen, cover car rental excess.
yes, have air ticket : )
I think you might have to look at a few PDS docs yourself, as there is a bit of confusion in this thread.
I understand most domestic travel policies will cover vehicle excess, but different rental companies will have different included coverage and varying excess amounts (e.g. cover off tarmac, or above the snow line varies).
I am surprised Budget or Avis don't sell an annual policy. It would be great lock-in to choose their cars. Maybe other people have more loyalty to rental companies than me.
Note also some road side assist policies cover car rental excess. And the platinum card insurance mentioned up thread can cover domestic rentals regardless of buying a flight, so maybe consider one of those, as it would also smooth the rental deposit element.
Try Australia Post $48 for 10 days basic travel insurance that covers $3000 hire car excess plus some other benefits including $4000 luggage and personal effects… $56 for 1yrs cover provided each individual trip is no longer than 15 days.
http://auspost.com.au/travel-insurance.htmlI've gone with AP's annual cover for the last 2 years. It also covers car hire excess.
I usually miss out, but they often put out a discount code at this time of year.
I can't advise which travel insurance would be best but I did have experience in a rental car accident. We refused rental car insurance and had travel insurance.
We paid the excess (possibly $2000 from memory) to the rental company. They then organised the repairs on the rental car and the other car.
Once we got home, we filled out the claim for travel insurance and our claim was approved (apart from the $100 excess).
It was all pretty simple but we were out of a couple of grand for a few weeks.
I usually use Auspost or Medibank Private domestic annual policy. Medibank discounts for members. Both of them have the option of adding additional insurance ontop of the basic rental car cover. Standard insurance cover is $3000 however most of the main car rental companies have a basic excess of $3200-3500 plus if a single vehicle accident an additional $2500-3000 on top. For that reason I purchase $3000 additional cover. That takes the premium up to around $150.
Another option is just to purchase insurance cover for a few days when you actually rent a car through https://tripcover.com.au/I've bought car hire excess insurance online from a UK company. They seem legit and have two policies available to international residents - the more expensive at 55GBP for one years insurance seems to cover just about everything.
Link below:
https://www.worldwideinsure.com/car-hire-excess-insurance.ph…
The term you want to google is:
"car rental excess insurance"
I will look through my documents and find the one I usually use which gives a good discount to RACV members.Trip cover is the one I used.
Thanks…… tripcover is about 50% off from what the car rental place try to charge…… : )
Yeah I know,for me it is even more as I am under 25 and most places sky rocket their insurance and everything once they realise your are under 25.
Also remember if you are a RACV member they offer 10-15% discount.
The only catch is the fact that you have to first pay the excess then claim it through trip cover (it is the same for all third party insurances).
Keep in mind there is some luggage protection included as well. Read the full PDS.
1cover travel insurance. I purchased myself for domestic car hire. But no experience with claiming. However its small price to pay for 1 week car hire
Thanks for all the info. What I'm a bit confused is most travel insurance policy says
Eg Rental Car Insurance Excess ~ cover up to $3,000 (Austpost travel insurance)Rental Car Insurance Excess
We will pay You for any Rental Car insurance excess
You become liable to pay as a result of damage to, or theft of, a Rental Car, whilst in Your control during the Journey.
The maximum benefit limit for this section is:
Domestic Plan:
$3,000
We Will Not Pay For:
1. any damage or theft, arising from the operation of a Rental Car in violation of the terms of the rental agreement.
2. any damage sustained to a Rental Car while it is being driven on an unsealed surface.The Car I rent includes 'standard cover' insurance with excess of $2750
"Standard Loss or Damage cover is included in our rates and subject to the conditions of the rental agreement. Standard Cover covers damage to the hired vehicle in the event of an accident with another vehicle. ( Multi Vehicle Accident ) Sufficient funds must be available on the cardholders credit card at the time of rental to cover the Damage Liability Fee"So does this mean even if I buy the travel insurance if I had a single vehicle damage or hail damage, storm damage, windscreen, tyre and headlight damage I would not be able to use the travel insurance excess claim as no insurance is even in place for the excess to kick in?
Just a bit confused about these wordings….The ABC checkout program mentions these companies for car rental excess cover:
https://tripcover.com.au/ (5% discount for Frequent flyer members plus I think some cashback with some of the various cashback sites)
http://www.hiccup.com.au/
https://www.rentalcover.com/Thanks…… tripcover is about 50% off from what the car rental place try to charge…… : )
great thread, i did a quote on tripcover since the excess on the SUV I want to rent in NZ will be $4500!! tripcover came out to $141 but I also checked southern cross insurance came out to only $100….excess coverage was $5000….southern cross looks unusually cheap!?!
I've used tripcover before but never claimed..
$100 is a reasonable amount IMO.
As I posted earlier I use a UK based company for my excess insurance for around the same price but in my case the $100 or so is for an annual policy for multiple hires but each hire must be no longer than 30 days (from memory).
Most of the black or platinum credit cards (in some case even gold) have a policy to cover the extra excess with car rentals.