I admit it. I’m addicted. There’s nothing I love more than a road trip…..
Recently I flew to the Gold Coast to begin my own personal road adventure around Northern NSW and it reminded me that car hire and excess car insurance coverage are a marriage in heaven – every single time!
“WHAT!” I hear you yell. Extra car insurance is a racket!” Believe me, I do understand your pain – I too always thought excess car insurance was an almighty waste of money. In my case, saying yes to this insurance would have nearly doubled the price of the rental and I was vaguely confident that my multi-trip annual travel insurance offered some sort of car rental excess coverage. Besides I thought nothing could go wrong – look at my safe driving record!
Big mistake
One minute I’m on my way back from a delicious dinner, stopping at a roundabout and doing the right thing by giving way to a vehicle, when SLAM, BANG, CRUNCH, OUCH!!! Needless to say over the next few days I learned some valuable lessons about just what can happen when you damage your rental car.
Please learn from my mishap and take my top three tips for ensuring a happy car rental:
- Know your liability: If something happens to your rental car, you’re responsible whether its your fault or not – and in today’s marketplace the rental agency’s basic coverage sets your potential liability at anything from $2,800 to $4000 – ouch! Standard liability rate can vary by between $20 to $43 per day so if makes sense to shop around for the least expensive option. Even then be warned, reducing your excess to zero does not mean you’ve waived all your liability. Common exclusions include hail damage, damage to windscreens and breaches to the rental agreement such as driving on unsealed roads, using undeclared drivers or disobeying the road rules.
- Know what your own insurances covers: Before you rent find out what your credit card or personal travel insurance covers then use the car hire’s insurance to cover the gaps. Some cards, especially platinum cards will reimburse up to the value of the car if its damaged or stolen but even then they may not cover personal liability (that is if you or someone else gets hurt). Domestic travel insurance commonly doesn’t cover car excess, as I sadly learned. For me its become one of the deciding factors when choosing travel insurance in future.
- Take lots of phone pictures: Don’t only take pictures in the event of an accident, it never hurts to get some basic before and after snaps like I did. That way, you can show the damage at pick up and the issue is quickly resolved if they try to slug you for damage you didn’t cause later.
As for me, $3000 later I will never turn down excess insurance again. At least the beaches were worth it!
