Rental car/insurance

[Chris]

ACK~ I have never taken out the extra insurance when I rent a car.
Tonight though, my SIL, who is also an insurance agent told me that we really should because while our coverage would cover some, it still leaves alot of $$$ SHOUD anything happen. EG, we would have to pay for the loss the company would take while car was being repaired etc.....

Now I'm thinking we should take it but for 19 days its over 400.00 more.....

what do you all do?

 

[Hedy]

Dumb question, but is SIL YOUR insurance agent? I only ask because I know my car insurance magazine spelled out why we don't need it.

 

[LadyyRedd]

Your own personal insurance will only cover liability, not collision or comprehensive.

I'm curious what your car magazine said!

Kimya

 

[Chris]

she is our agent, has been the past year. Before that our old one said we didn't really need it but did tell us we would have to cover the loss of use/rental if anything happened.

SIL and BiL were in an accident that wasn't there fault on vacation before and had to pay over 500.00 to the rental company for the car being out of commission...

Still not sure what I'm going to do....looking forward to seeing more replies.

Thanks Hedy! bTW where in MA are you? we are on the north shore.

 

[Toby'sFriend]

we use a credit card that has a rental car insurance policy as one of it's benefits.

 

[bellecat22]

I took out the insurance once and it cost more than the rental. I've since spoken with my insurance agent, who is thru AAA. He told me that I don't need the insurance, but I also have full coverage (fire, theft, collision), so don't bother taking the extra insurance. If for some reason I was in an accident, it would probably cost about the same amount of money that the insurance cost in the first place.

So, long story short, I no longer take the insurance....

 

[powellrj]

as long as you use a credit card that offers protection (I think most gold cards do) and have full coverage with your auto insurance, we have always been told we don't need the extra insurance.

 

[rparmfamily]

I have always told we are completely covered.

 

[bumbershoot]

I've never been one for the extra insurance.

And then, just this May, we moved, and rented one cargo van and one moving truck, and had a LONG conversation with my Allstate agent about it. Before I had Geico for 11 years, and never really talked with an agent (ha ha, the Allstate guy SAID I'd appreciate having an agent to talk to and i didn't believe him until right now!).

How does this relate to a car? I'll tell you. For my coverage (which at the time was full, over the top coverage for my leased car) up to the cargo van I was covered. BUT even the places we rented from had big signs saying they would NOT WAIT for insurance to pay, and they would go after the renter immediately. I don't know if car rental places have those signs. But I sure wouldn't want to have to try to pay osmething up front and then get reimbursed somehow from the car insurance!

And while chatting about the insurance on the cargo van (considered a passenger van and therefore covered) we talked about rental cars, and he reminded me that if I rented a car, got into an accident, and got Allstate involved, it would go down on their permanent record of me, and it would change my future rates and possible coverage. While, he said, using the extra insurance would NOT do that.

So, um, yeah...I'm gettin' the extra insurance in the future.

 

[antmaril]

I take a letter I have from my insurance agent confirming that I don't need the insurance on a rental.

I really think that loss of use stuff is a scam. The only way they should be able to charge you for "loss of use" is if they didn't have ANY cars available to rent. I bet if a person got an attorney involved, they wouldn't be able to get away with that.

 

[ducklite]

I take a letter I have from my insurance agent confirming that I don't need the insurance on a rental.

I really think that loss of use stuff is a scam. The only way they should be able to charge you for "loss of use" is if they didn't have ANY cars available to rent. I bet if a person got an attorney involved, they wouldn't be able to get away with that.

If you can prove that they had cars available then they can't try to collect loss of use. I would imagine that during peak rental seasons in Orlando (Christmas, Easter, etc.) that the rental company would probably be able to collect at least the amount that would cover moving a car from another location or something along those lines.)

Like others have said, most gold and platinum cards automatically provide a CDW.

Anne

 

[Green Tea]

A lot of credit cards offer protection.

I had a coupon/code for National that I learned about on the transportation board here that provided full coverage at really no additional cost. Try looking there for info.