Rental Car Insurance: The Pros And Cons
Any time that you get a rental car, the rental company will try to sell rental car insurance to you. Most companies will have varying rates that offer different levels of covering the car, bodily injury, and the full cost of the car. By waiving this insurance, you are taking full responsibility in the event that you are involved in an accident.
Or are you? Not necessarily. A majority of people that own vehicles already pay for full coverage insurance. In most cases, full coverage insurance covers the policy holder in any vehicle that they drive, including rental cars. Check with your auto insurance agent to see if rental cars are covered by your policy and what deductibles or coverage you should expect if you are involved in an accident.
If you do have an accident while driving a rental vehicle and you opted to use your personal insurance, you will file a claim through your insurance company. You will have to initiate the process, but you will be working with your own company rather than rental car insurance company. However, if you are found to be at fault, your insurance policy rate will go up. Some insurance companies have higher deductibles for rental vehicles than for your own personal vehicle. You will not have a choice where the car is repaired or replaced and the car rental place will typically charge all repairs to your credit card. It will be up to you to go through your insurance company to get reimbursed, less the deductible.
If you choose to use rental car insurance, you will save yourself a lot of dilemmas of using your own. Firstly, your personal insurance rate will not go up if you are involved in an accident and you were found to be at fault. Additionally, with a rental insurance policy, you will not have to pay a deductible.
But rental car insurance is generally very expensive. Unlike your insurance company that calculates rates based on statistics about drivers like you, the rental company charges a flat rate for everyone based on the overall likelihood that their car will be involved in an accident. It is usually calculated on a daily basis, so having the car for an extended period of time (even a week) can be extremely expensive. You will have to weigh the cost of insurance and not having a deductible with the money you might have to pay for a deductible.
A couple of things that you should consider about getting rental insurance are determining your risk of an accident and where you will be driving. You may be at a higher risk of an accident if you are driving somewhere that is completely new to you. A location that has different laws, more traffic, or bad weather conditions may be enticing reasons to lean toward rental insurance. Additionally, many personal insurance companies will not pay for claims from accidents that occur in foreign countries.
One final option that you may have is protection from fees provided by a credit card company. Many people do not know it, but several major credit card companies offer damage and theft insurance coverage if you used their card to rent a vehicle. However, they do not typically offer coverage for bodily injury or property damage. You will need to contact your credit card company or read the terms and conditions provided by them.
When you rent a car, be sure that you make an informed decision to whether or not you will accept rental car insurance. Whether you choose to get insurance through the rental company, your insurance company, or rely on the credit card company, it could end up saving or costing you considerable amounts of money in the event that you are at fault for an accident in the rental car. Next time you rent a car, do not take the decision lightly.
Tags: Car Insurance, finance, Insurance, Rental Car Insurance