Your car hire agreement will normally include insurance cover for damage and theft.  Even so, if the hire car is damaged or stolen, the driver is normally asked to pay the first portion of the repair or replacement costs.  This is known as the ‘excess’. You need excess insurance to cover this loss.

Example: let’s imagine that you are involved in an accident that causes £3,000 worth of damage to the car.  If the car hire insurance agreement included an excess of £500 then the car hire company would expect you to pay the first £500 pounds of the repair costs.    Excess amounts vary, but can be as much as £2,000, so a crash could be very expensive.  Car hire excess payments are normally required to be made even if the damage was not your fault.

Car hire excess costs can be avoided by taking out ‘car hire excess insurance’. For a small fee, you can have your risk reduced to zero.  This means that even if the car is damaged or stolen you will usually be fully reimbursed.

You can normally pay insurance to waive the excess (i.e. reduce your risk to zero) at the car hire desk, but the car rental companies will often charge quite high premiums (sometimes £15 or more per day!). If you take out your own car hire excess insurance policy in advance you will get a much better deal, and normally wider cover too.

If you want to save money on your car hire excess or waiver insurance you need to shop around.  Our car hire excess insurance comparison has been created to help you make the right choice.