Car insurance for Australian rental
 

Will be renting car and have found that credit card does not cover insurance in Australia and several other countries. Any suggestions?

Thank you.

See if your Travel Insurance carrier will cover it as an extension. Mine gives me AUD 2500 C/D on rental vehicles for an additional AUD 50. covermore.com.au

First step - get a car hire that includes insurance. Most have insurance included. Then you are left with the excess.

For the excess, get a better credit card - seriously, most credit cards will cover an excess on car hire.

Otherwise, excess insurance can be found at www.insurance4carhire.com

I'm sure that all rental cars are fully insured when you hire them. What you have to pay extra for is the Excess or Deductable, which is common to most insurance policies (ie my insurance has a $1000 excess if driven by a male driver under 25, and I get a cheaper rate for agreeing to this)
Unfortunately the excess on rental cars is in the order of $2500 to $3000, and that's where it starts to hurt.
In actual fact, most rental companies don't insure their cars. They 'carry their own insurance'. in other words, if a car is written off it's cheaper to stand the loss than pay insurance for every car in the fleet. To offset this they charge exorbitent rates for "Excess", usually far more than you or I pay per day for insurance on our own cars.
You are better to arange excess insurance though your travel insurance. Make sure it covers the excess, some don't. Same with credit cards. Make sure, by asking , that is covers the excess. Some imply they do, and when you read the fine print, or worse, try to claim, you find there is some obscure clause that renders you ineligible.

.. and further to vbca's good advice:
1. The CDW (collision damage waiver) can cost an additional $25+/day to reduce the Excess from the normal $2750 to $300 or so.

2. In Sydney and Perth, there is a rental company called, "Bayswater car rentals" which has an excess of only $250. And very good rates, too.

3. If your Credit Card provider covers rental vehicles, you do need to have them specify in writing that it covers Australia, NZ or whatever country you're visiting. Even if it's in their "Terms & Conditions", it's worthwhile having a written confirmation for the duration of your trip, because one of the standard clauses for most Credit Cards is that the conditions/provisions can be changed at any time without prior notice, and you don't want to be caught by out-of-date T & Cs.

Thank you all for your advice. The card(Jetblue Amex) i used to book the rental specifically excludes Australia. Will investigate travel insurance option, or try to change payment to another card.

FYI: Both Chase and Capital One cover the excess the Australia.

foxf1 -

My United States issued platinum Visa card covers the excess on rentals in Australia and NZ, whereas my Mastercard doesn't, so if you have a Visa, suggest you give them a call.

good point both of mine were Visa as well

Amex's insurance co doesnt cover car rentals in Australia (and a few other popular places like Italy) but your Visa card will. I've booked all my car rentals using my Visa card for the excess. Also, consider travel insurance which typically have options to cover car rentals and may be cheaper than buying from the rental car company.