International Travel Insurance Hire Car

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  SirFlibbled on 22/07/2015 - 09:04

  Not really. Covermore covers you for excess on your insurance but not the insurance itself. As you may have discovered many car rental insurances have excess in the thousands. So your travel insurance will reduce that down to almost $0 if you choose to.

  But insuring the actual car has much more liability attached. Even if they did offer it, the cover would be significantly higher.

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  mskeggs on 22/07/2015 - 10:00

  $60 a day seems absurdly high. As SirFibbled said, there is insurance, which is often included in the base hire rate, and "excess waiver" or "excess reduction" which reduces the $3000 or $5000 excess down to something manageable or nil.
  If you pay the rental company, they handle any claims. If you rely on travel insurance, the rental company will charge you the excess then you need to claim it back.
  I am surprised the Covermore insurance didn't cover the excess. And I have the Westpac Black Earth which does have car excess insurance for international rentals - I thought all the top level Westpac cards had the same insurance policy.

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    SirFlibbled on 22/07/2015 - 15:23

    It's an option with Covermore IIRC. But if you KNOW you are renting a car then you should just take it out as a option. I'm going to Thailand in November and will be hiring a car.

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  SimbaGirl on 22/07/2015 - 16:19

  +3

  The "rental excess" cover in most travel insurance policies means very little when renting a car in the US. Yes, the insurance is expensive but over there, it's pretty much all or nothing - if you don't take out the appropriate insurance cover, you are responsible for anything up to the ENTIRE cost of the car in the event of a write-off. Effectively, there's no such thing as an "excess" when renting a car in the US, not for overseas visitors anyway, so the few thousand dollars in cover that most policies offer wouldn't go far if there's much damage to the car. Many third-party car rental websites, and the major rental companies themselves, will often include insurance in quotes for Aussies who intend renting a car in the US, so you're aware up front of what you're paying and unfortunately it's not cheap. The main insurances you need are LDW (Loss Damage Waiver)/CDW (Collision Damage Waiver) to cover the car and ALI/SLI (Additional/Supplementary Liability Insurance). The reason you need the liability insurance is because the million-dollar liability cover in travel insurance policies does NOT apply from "the use or ownership by You of any firearm, aircraft, waterborne craft or mechanically propelled vehicle" so if you're driving a car and have an accident, you have NO liability cover. A lot of people aren't aware of this, but every travel insurance policy I've looked at (those issued by Australian companies anyway) has this (or a similarly worded) exclusion under the Liability section of their insurance cover. A lot of car rental companies will also try to sell you stuff like PAI (Personal Accident Insurance) and PEI (Personal Effects Insurance) which is unnecessary as they offer much the same cover as your travel insurance for medical expenses, loss of items etc.

  It's different for locals in the US - quite often their own motor vehicle insurance can be used to cover a rental vehicle and many US credit cards offer this cover as well.

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    mskeggs on 26/07/2015 - 19:12

    This is a great comment. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

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      SimbaGirl on 27/07/2015 - 17:33

      You're welcome :) . We've hired a car in the US on several different trips and I tend to be a bit obsessive about stuff like insurance, so did a lot of research beforehand LOL.

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    SirFlibbled on 27/07/2015 - 13:04

    Rental excess cover still requires you have your own insurance. All it does is reduce the excess from say $5000 to $500. That is, the travel insurer pays the majority of your excess. It does NOT provide the actual insurance if you get into a bingle.