Foreign Country Car Rental Insurance

[Dave22q]

I ran into insurance issues in Costa Rica. Budget attempted to make me buy insurance but I had prepared and had proof of coverage with me. This used to be a benefit of most credit cards but today it varies by specific card issuer.

Before booking a foreign rental you need to make sure you use the right card to be covered in each country. It may take an hour or more of endless phone transfers and transfers but can be a good investment of your time. Note many companies do not permit using a different card than the one use for booking so do your homework first,

[belizesailor]

My CitiBank card provides up to $100K in damages insurance, but not TPL. Many rental agencies seriously rip you off for damage insurance, but their TPL is usually cheap. This cuts way down on rental cost and Im covered for damages. CitiBank card must be used to rent vehicle. Ive had this accepted by rental companies in many countries.

[Dave22q]

Originally Posted by carstenb

maybe you should think about changing credit crd suppliers. OUr mastercard covers even if don't use it to rent the car

Interesting but difficult to believe. I suggest you recheck.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Dave22q

I ran into insurance issues in Costa Rica. Budget attempted to make me buy insurance but I had prepared and had proof of coverage with me. This used to be a benefit of most credit cards but today it varies by specific card issuer.

Before booking a foreign rental you need to make sure you use the right card to be covered in each country. It may take an hour or more of endless phone transfers and transfers but can be a good investment of your time. Note many companies do not permit using a different card than the one use for booking so do your homework first,

CR is a little different, there is a national insurance that is normally a requirement regardless of what other coverage you may have.

[bobnlesley]

It may only be for UK residents/passport holders, but we have a policy from 'Insurance4carhire' which covers all Excess/Deductibles/CDW and the like for car hires of <60 days, anywhere in the world; it cost me about £60/$80 year.

[alex_sauvage]

Costa Rica is well know for this practice. There are actually websites devoted to this topic: how to avoid car insurance scam in Costa Rica. Rental rates are dirt cheap: like 5$ per day , but they make money selling insurance. Recent proof of coverage normally works.
For the rest of the world: yes, you can buy CDW from rental company, but it doubles rental cost and normally comes with deductable around 1000$. Credit card insurance is deductable free. Obviously credit card company might refuse to pay up, but I am yet to hear that regarding AmEx or Mastercard. If someone knows an example when credit card company refused to cover legitimate car damage, it would be very informative

Originally Posted by Dave22q

I ran into insurance issues in Costa Rica. Budget attempted to make me buy insurance but I had prepared and had proof of coverage with me. This used to be a benefit of most credit cards but today it varies by specific card issuer.

Before booking a foreign rental you need to make sure you use the right card to be covered in each country. It may take an hour or more of endless phone transfers and transfers but can be a good investment of your time. Note many companies do not permit using a different card than the one use for booking so do your homework first,

[dannc]

We have only rented an overseas car in Ireland....

When we were planning the trip, we read up on our rental insurance with our credit cards one of which is American Express. Ireland is one of those countries were renting a car and insurance is EXPENSIVE. To be fair, insurance for the Irish is expensive as well. I don't remember the details anymore but we figured that using the credit card insurance in Ireland was NOT a good thing to do. Ireland might not have been covered by our credit cards, I just do not remember. But Ireland is problematic with car insurance.

So we bought insurance with the car rental. Insurance was at least half of the cost of the rental. We had almost every bit of insurance they nickled and dimed you to get.

We did a bunch of research before the trip and a constant theme about Irish roads was the narrowness, brush growing into the roads, pot holes, pot holes, and pot holes, along with pavement that melted in the "hot" sun. All sorts of reports of cracked windshields, flat tires, bent rims, etc.

We would be driving the back roads, roads with single lanes and maybe going on gravel roads, so we insuranced up.

We were not an hour or so into the trip, just crossed into Northern Ireland, and came on to some road construction. They were repaving and had these warning signs showing trucks spewing gravel forward at on coming traffic as they traveled down the road. The work they were doing I have only seen done a few times in the states. They put down new pavement and then put gravel on top. The junction between new and old was really smooth and it was well done. We drive on gravel roads so no worries...

We saw the sign of the truck spewing gravel. We hit the gravel. A truck driving in the other direction was spewing gravel just like the sign showed. Said truck showered us with gravel and the gravel cracked the windshield. What a great way to start the vacation.

Then we were on the back roads. Being narrow takes some getting used too, and the car had a stupid, dangerous warning system of getting close to anything. Danged thing was going off all of the time because we WERE getting close to stuff! It was the bushes, weeds, and flowers growing into the road! No way to avoid it. We worried a bit about scratching the car, we had insurance for it, but we really did not scratch up the car which was a surprise.

We did see and "feel" a few pot holes but I have seen far worse in the states. We did talked to more than one Irish person who complained of the pot holes.

We did have a heat wave during the trip, I think it was in the high 80s, which we thought was nice. The Irish? They were dying from the heat. One day we were out driving and going up a hill that was facing the sun. It was on one of the warm days maybe near 90F. I could SEE the pavement melting! WTF. We get temperatures in the low 100s but I have never seen pavement melt. The tires hit the melting pavement and it was like we were driving on ice. In July. Twas interesting.

When we turned the car in I showed them the cracked windshield, and you could see the glee form in the wee lass's eyes. Then I mentioned the insurance, she said, "Yep, you are covered.", I handed over the keys and we left.

I would hate to think what they would have charged for that broken windshield. We certainly had some, shall we say, blemishes in the paint from the brush that hit the car. I think the blemishes would have washed off, but without insurance, I would guess they would have made my credit card bleed.

The insurance was expensive, outrageously expensive, but it was worth the piece of mind, and it certainly payed for itself. When we go back to Ireland, we will pay for the outrageously expensive insurance.

Later,
Dan

[Matt Johnson]

Originally Posted by bobnlesley

It may only be for UK residents/passport holders, but we have a policy from 'Insurance4carhire' which covers all Excess/Deductibles/CDW and the like for car hires of <60 days, anywhere in the world; it cost me about £60/$80 year.

Unfortunately, this yearly car rental insurance for Europe is not available to US citizens. I tried.

https://www.allianztravelinsurance.c...-insurance.htm does offer travel insurance for $9 a day that includes car rental CDW. I haven't used them but it doesn't seem like a bad price if you're only renting a car on occasion.

Matt

[Fore and Aft]

I always use the car hire companies comprehensive insurance when hiring a car. It's more expensive but one time after bouncing a couple of cows of a Hertz hire car Bonnet all we had to do was fill out a form. No money changed hands and we got a replacement car.
Cheers

[billgewater]

A bad car insurance story. Some years ago we rented a car while touring in South Africa. We checked it out on acceptance. We did take out insurance for tires, windscreen etc. We drove on excellent roads for 3 days when the drivers side wheel well plastic lining came adrift. I tied it up with a cable tie and contacted the rental car agency who asked me to bring the vehicle in. They drove the car away for inspection at a remote service center and replaced the car with another. This cost us a day of holiday time. They said the vehicle was "unsafe to drive".
A few weeks later back in Australia I received a bill for $1300 AUD repairs. They also told me that a complete sump guard had came off but I was not able to check this out.
I immediately closed my credit card account which they had access to. I refused to pay. I pointed out that any such damage could not have happened while driving on good roads and if it did happen we would have immediately noticed the resulting noise. I also pointed out that as they had claimed the car was not safe to use then maybe they should recompense me for renting out a dud, dangerous vehicle. I emailed everyone I knew in the tourist industry and tourist agencies in South Africa. I then received an apology from the rental company. They dropped the claim against us.
A friend in the tourism business then informed me that this was probably a scam. He had seen it before from that same company and informed his customers of such. Rental companies assume you will pay up or use your own insurance to pay for work that you can't check. Particularly for overseas visitors.

Insurance can lend itself to scams.

We visit SA regularly and now always thoroughly check out the insurance fine print. We also attend the check out process when the vehicle is returned.

Recently in England we hired a four door sedan for a few days. It was a brand new BMW hybrid. The friends we were staying with us pointed out that a small scratch on that car would cost in the vicinity of 500 English pounds to "repair". We drove in fear.

[dfelsent]

Originally Posted by dannc

We have only rented an overseas car in Ireland....

When we were planning the trip, we read up on our rental insurance with our credit cards one of which is American Express. Ireland is one of those countries were renting a car and insurance is EXPENSIVE. To be fair, insurance for the Irish is expensive as well. I don't remember the details anymore but we figured that using the credit card insurance in Ireland was NOT a good thing to do. Ireland might not have been covered by our credit cards, I just do not remember. But Ireland is problematic with car insurance.

So we bought insurance with the car rental. Insurance was at least half of the cost of the rental. We had almost every bit of insurance they nickled and dimed you to get.

We did a bunch of research before the trip and a constant theme about Irish roads was the narrowness, brush growing into the roads, pot holes, pot holes, and pot holes, along with pavement that melted in the "hot" sun. All sorts of reports of cracked windshields, flat tires, bent rims, etc.

We would be driving the back roads, roads with single lanes and maybe going on gravel roads, so we insuranced up.

We were not an hour or so into the trip, just crossed into Northern Ireland, and came on to some road construction. They were repaving and had these warning signs showing trucks spewing gravel forward at on coming traffic as they traveled down the road. The work they were doing I have only seen done a few times in the states. They put down new pavement and then put gravel on top. The junction between new and old was really smooth and it was well done. We drive on gravel roads so no worries...

We saw the sign of the truck spewing gravel. We hit the gravel. A truck driving in the other direction was spewing gravel just like the sign showed. Said truck showered us with gravel and the gravel cracked the windshield. What a great way to start the vacation.

Then we were on the back roads. Being narrow takes some getting used too, and the car had a stupid, dangerous warning system of getting close to anything. Danged thing was going off all of the time because we WERE getting close to stuff! It was the bushes, weeds, and flowers growing into the road! No way to avoid it. We worried a bit about scratching the car, we had insurance for it, but we really did not scratch up the car which was a surprise.

We did see and "feel" a few pot holes but I have seen far worse in the states. We did talked to more than one Irish person who complained of the pot holes.

We did have a heat wave during the trip, I think it was in the high 80s, which we thought was nice. The Irish? They were dying from the heat. One day we were out driving and going up a hill that was facing the sun. It was on one of the warm days maybe near 90F. I could SEE the pavement melting! WTF. We get temperatures in the low 100s but I have never seen pavement melt. The tires hit the melting pavement and it was like we were driving on ice. In July. Twas interesting.

When we turned the car in I showed them the cracked windshield, and you could see the glee form in the wee lass's eyes. Then I mentioned the insurance, she said, "Yep, you are covered.", I handed over the keys and we left.

I would hate to think what they would have charged for that broken windshield. We certainly had some, shall we say, blemishes in the paint from the brush that hit the car. I think the blemishes would have washed off, but without insurance, I would guess they would have made my credit card bleed.

The insurance was expensive, outrageously expensive, but it was worth the piece of mind, and it certainly payed for itself. When we go back to Ireland, we will pay for the outrageously expensive insurance.

Later,
Dan

We rented a car in Ireland this year. US citizens. Paid the insurance. Paid the Northern Ireland fee too.
Interesting roads. Almost like rural Scotland. Or Shetland.

No claims, no regrets. Part of the cost of doing business as they say.

When we went to Shetland we parked our Avis rental at the shopping mall in Aberdeen. Rented a car on island. Saved the ferry fare and hassle for the car and saved the concerns about the roads. Which were actually quite good.

[TomThumb]

Most of the responses seem to suggest varying experiences and credit card based answers. My own come with cautions.

I've found that domestic policies relate to the law of that country and therefore while both your own insurer may offer foreign coverage, as do some cards, the realities of what aspects they will actually cover is different. Remember insurance is a risk-based business there to make money, not provide a service, so they never want to pay. They offer coverages that don't actually deal with the most likely incidents, like you encountered and they can't possibly write coverage for every jurisdiction in the world. (The same goes for Travel Insurance. If you want to ski, go remote places etc where injury and casualty recovery is both more likely and expensive than they are at Disneyland you have to really hunt around for specialist cover).

My conclusion has been to take the additional coverages offered but when booking online, I select them, for that country, after checking on issues and what I don't need. I get that advice from sites like this:

https://www.tripsavvy.com/do-i-need-...abroad-3259864

[gardeningal]

Many credit cards offer car rental insurance if you use the card to pay for rental. There is lots of information if you google it. Make sure that it's primary insurance, ie: it pays first regardless of other insurance available. Chase Sapphire preferred is a good one.

[tedowens]

I am a full time liveaboard and no longer own a car. So, I don't have car insurance or homeowners insurance. I have rented cars in half a dozen foreign countries. All of them offered collision insurance (many were already priced with that included). None of them offered liability insurance. Coming from the USA, I am actually want liability insurance more than collision. When I ask rental car providers for it, they don't understand and it is clear that this does not exist where they are. I gather that liability is only a USA issue.

About credit card coverage. This is what they call overage insurance, which means that the CC will cover costs over and above the level of your primary coverage. If you do not have primary auto coverage, then this insurance is not applicable. Since I do not own a car, I do not have auto insurance. Therefore, CC coverage does not cover me either. Umbrella insurance works the same way and is also not applicable.

Also, not being a home owner, I do not have personal liability insurance either. Again, being American I want liability insurance. There is a type of boat insurance designed for liveaboards like me that includes comprehensive personal liability like homeowners insurance. Only a couple of companies offer it. I use Jackline, which is sold by IMS/Growie. The annual cost is about 2% of the value of the boat.

[alex_sauvage]

I am not sure this is completely correct information, but I guess YMMV. In my experience, and I rented cars in Europe a couple dozen times: 3rd party liability is always included. They might use a different term, but at least for big companies it is always there. In places like Italy even CDW is mandatory and included into the price. As far as credit card coverage: it depends. Some only offer secondary coverage, but one need to look for a good ones that offer primary coverage, like Sapphire or United. They are definetely there. But be careful to check conditions: some countries like Ireland (as been mentioned before), Israel and Easterm Europe have there own rules. So I always check with CC and get written conformation. Takes 5 minutes to send email and I simply copy my previous one and change country and dates accordingly. And as someone suggested : Google is your friend. Quick search will show if there are common issues with car insurance in that countty

Originally Posted by tedowens

. I have rented cars in half a dozen foreign countries. All of them offered collision insurance (many were already priced with that included). None of them offered liability insurance. Coming from the USA, I am actually want liability insurance more than collision. When I ask rental car providers for it, they don't understand and it is clear that this does not exist where they are. I gather that liability is only a USA issue.

About credit card coverage. This is what they call overage insurance, which means that the CC will cover costs over and above the level of your primary coverage. If you do not have primary auto coverage, then this insurance is not applicable. Since I do not own a car, I do not have auto insurance. Therefore, CC coverage does not cover me either. Umbrella insurance works the same way and is also not applicable.
.