Car hire excess insurance can seem confusing… but it doesn’t need to be.
We give clear explanations of what car hire excess insurance is and how it works.
We compare the various car hire excess insurance policies available on the UK market, so you can pick which one is best for you.
Plus there’s a detailed review of all the policies in plain English. No legal jargon here!
| What is car hire excess insurance?
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’. 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 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 to waive the excess (i.e. reduce your risk to zero) at the car hire desk, but the car hire companies will often charge quite high premiums (sometimes £15 or more per day!). If you take out your own car hire excess 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 insurance you need to shop around. Our Policy Comparison section will help you do this. |