Car hire excess cover

[Quiddle]

Rather than use the extortionate "excess cover" offered by car hire companies we, along with many others I'm sure, have an annual policy which generally works out cheaper after the first 5 days of car hire. Anyway, I submitted my first claim yesterday after a wheel lost a fight with a Portuguese road surface and the excess charge was paid into my bank today. No connection etc but I would recommend Car Hire Excess Insurance from £2.42/day | ReduceMyExcess based on this experience.

 

[Davy_S]

We hire several holiday hire cars and use Car Hire Excess Insurance | insurance4carhire never had a claim so don't know how good they are, costs £40 ish, per year, if you hire in Spain or the Canaries, Cicar and Auto Riesen cars come complete with no collision damage fully included in the price.

 

[Solent Cruiser]

Excellent posts - I'm appreciative of practical, helpful input that can be researched via URLs and considered. ?

 

[colhel]

When we hire a car in Portugal, we use Zitauto. All insurance included and any driver. And, you don't have to queue in that booth. No connection, but they did send us a Christmas card.
Zitauto Rent a Car

 

[Alicatt]

Coming back from holiday in Catalonia a few years ago, my wife had been driving and I was sleeping until Luxembourg where we changed over. I was about 1am ish and heading down hill in to Luik (Liege) I set the cruise control to 76km/h as that would keep the car just under the 80km/h limit as there are a load of speed cameras on that stretch, we were about half way down when a little car went screaming past me, wow it was fast, more than double what I was doing, the road then takes a sweep to the right and there is an escape lane about there and BANG another little car side swipes me, careens into the crash barrier on the left and in a shower of sparks runs along the wall to the right and comes to a halt under a flyover/tunnel I slow down and park up behind them. I was about to get out and check if they are ok but the guys in the car bail out and come over to us and try to force their way into my car calling us to get out at first pleasantly then aggressively doors are locked and we are already on the phone to the police.

The control centre insists I go check the number on the closest mile marker (km marker) but there are none in sight, the young lads are busy with their car stripping it of any ID etc. so I sneak out and go back up the road to get the km marker number, I never reach it, I had been seen, the guys surround me and push me against the wall of the tunnel and start hitting me, I do defend myself as best I can, one of the guys calls out and they all run up and over the top of the tunnel and away.

The police arrive, and take a statement from us, while I was away my wife had called emergency services and was in hysterics about me getting beaten up.

The police look at the other car which is very banged up and when they open the bonnet and get the chassis number look that up they get the driver's name, my wife is listening to them speak together in French and one police says to the other that the driver had just been released from prison for murder when he was a juvenile and had been out for less than 6months, I can tell you a chill went down my spine when she translated that for me.

Anyway to the point, from that it took 2 years to get a settlement from the Belgian insurance company of the other car and almost cost me my no claims discount, It was a trying time, the repair to the Range Rover Sport in Belgium here the garages said it would cost too much and they would write off the vehicle as in Belgium the value of a TDV8 is only about €4k and the repair was going to be about that, I took the car to the UK and it was repaired for £1800. 2 door skins and a re-spray.
Now I'm importing my TDV8 to Belgium, value €4.9k as a car, converted to a "Light freight" it is €19k tax on the RRS as a car is €2800/year and as a light freight €158/year

 

[Paddy Fields]

Top sail charter boat excess insurance also coves hire car excess. That’s what I use, but might be less useful for your liveaboards

 

[colind3782]

I use icarhireinsurance.com and have done for years. Never claimed but it's good value for about £40 pa

 

[Pasarell]

I use Insurance4carhire. Had policies for about 12 years now and never made a claim but I've heard of others who've had a good experience. Price is about the same as above. It's crazy paying the ridiculous amounts the hire companies charge

 

[BobnLesley]

I use Insurance4carhire. Had policies for about 12 years now and never made a claim but I've heard of others who've had a good experience. Price is about the same as above. It's crazy paying the ridiculous amounts the hire companies charge

We too have used and continue to recommend Insurance4carhire having used them for eight years in a row, hiring cars in the UK, Europe, North & S Americas, Pacific Islands and NZ without issue; two claims, both being repaid into our bank account within 3-4 days of our making them.

 

[TwoHooter]

I used Insurance4carhire for a while, then changed to https://www.questor-insurance.co.uk/ - I forget why I changed but it wasn't the premium. I very soon afterwards had a claim for a damaged tyre on an Enterprise car (I learned the tyres that are fitted to hire cars are very poor quality with astonishingly thin walls). The claim for about £100 was handled by Octopus - many insurers seem to delegate claims handling to subcontractors these days. It turned in to a saga because Enterprise hung on to my £200 deposit. But I had the last laugh because Enterprise lost the documents (really?) and in the end they had to refund my deposit and cancel the bill for the tyre. Octopus were really good and I'm confident I would have been reimbursed if the claim had been pursued.

 

[Chris_Robb]

On a slight thread drift, we rented in Greece via the broker Rentalcars.com, with a small hire firm working off airport at Athens. When we got there, I handed over my passport and they said I was over 70. - I was still 69 - my next birthday 9 months away. But Greece apparently does in a year in advance (brilliant) I had to pay extra or walk away and fight for a late cancelation.
On returning to the UK I rang Rentalcars.com and asked for that money back, stating that the search conditions did not come up with an age restriction - indeed the rental cars terms were on the site - 72 was their restriction. I got my money back by return. The additional charge more than double the hire charge and this kind of scam is very common according to Rental Cars.com. I will stick with them.

 

[TwoHooter]

It seems to me that the car rental market is an example of harm done by the internet and particularly by comparison websites. Because it is now so easy to compare prices there seems to be a tendency to regard more and more products and services as commodities, and car rental is a good example. If consumers regard something as a commodity they will always go for the cheapest price, and the comparison sites reinforce that tendency. The result is that everyone has to try and compete on price, it's a race to the bottom, and suppliers have to look for ways to charge "extras" of one kind and another to make a profit. In the car rental business this typically means charging excessive amounts for insurance and trying to extract money for cleaning, repairs, etc. This problem is everywhere you look. All consumer insurance, property conveyancing, will writing, package holidays, and of course budget airlines. Before the internet some firms in each market could genuinely provide a good service at a fair price, build a reputation, and get business by word of mouth. That's getting harder and I think in the end it's detrimental.

 

[Chris_Robb]

It seems to me that the car rental market is an example of harm done by the internet and particularly by comparison websites. Because it is now so easy to compare prices there seems to be a tendency to regard more and more products and services as commodities, and car rental is a good example. If consumers regard something as a commodity they will always go for the cheapest price, and the comparison sites reinforce that tendency. The result is that everyone has to try and compete on price, it's a race to the bottom, and suppliers have to look for ways to charge "extras" of one kind and another to make a profit. In the car rental business this typically means charging excessive amounts for insurance and trying to extract money for cleaning, repairs, etc. This problem is everywhere you look. All consumer insurance, property conveyancing, will writing, package holidays, and of course budget airlines. Before the internet some firms in each market could genuinely provide a good service at a fair price, build a reputation, and get business by word of mouth. That's getting harder and I think in the end it's detrimental.

Twohoots - I entirely agree. This is an unfortunate consequence of comparatives. It really though is a partial reflection on us in that we just dont bother to do any due diligence on anything any more - we just complain afterwards!

 

[Quiddle]

Twohoots - I entirely agree. This is an unfortunate consequence of comparatives. It really though is a partial reflection on us in that we just dont bother to do any due diligence on anything any more - we just complain afterwards!

I agree with the analysis but why is it not a good thing. Pre Ryanair a return flight to Spain could not be had for less than £300 in today's money. Now it is possible for less than 10% of that. If you don't want the hassle of examining the T&Cs then pay more by all means but it's no bad thing that cheaper commodities are available. Plenty of people still by Single Malt in preference to Tesco's value scotch. I mostly hire cars for convenience rather than necessity, if the price went up I'd get the train, leaving the car hire Co. to pay storage for a fleet of unused cars in the off season.

 

[Chris_Robb]

I agree with the analysis but why is it not a good thing. Pre Ryanair a return flight to Spain could not be had for less than £300 in today's money. Now it is possible for less than 10% of that. If you don't want the hassle of examining the T&Cs then pay more by all means but it's no bad thing that cheaper commodities are available. Plenty of people still by Single Malt in preference to Tesco's value scotch. I mostly hire cars for convenience rather than necessity, if the price went up I'd get the train, leaving the car hire Co. to pay storage for a fleet of unused cars in the off season.

Not quite a comparison I think - and yes Rian has done a lot here.
But
At this level, there is more thought about , will they get me there, can I get a refund, does it fly to the best places for me, and are the times convenient. At the car hire level much more of the top of the list approach - which may be the company that has thrown the most advertising at it!

 

[TwoHooter]

At least with airlines you do know what your costs will be up front, principally because the regulators have insisted that this is the case. And budget airlines were already in existence before the internet. Easyjet's original livery had their phone number on the fuselage. Car hire, insurance, property conveyancing, will writing and some other things are instances where you really do not know what the final bill (or the consequences of your purchase) will be until it's too late to do anything about it.
I forgot to mention the other problem with the internet - customer reviews. When these first started in a big way (I think Ebay invented the concept of feedback) most people seemed to be honest. These days I scarcely look at review sites, particularly TrustPilot, because they are infested with fake reviews. Amazon just the same.
Perhaps it's time to take out a subscription to Which?