My husband and I rented a car on our trip to Italy back in May. We declined the additional charges when we picked up our car in Venice and my husband initialed in the places that were marked on the Italian rental agreement. When we returned the car in Rome, we discovered that he had initialed in the accept charges box and we were charged for an additional insurance coverage for collision insurance even though we did not want the coverage. We told the agent there that we had declined the charges and she said that they would not have let us even rent the car without accepting this charge ($17 extra dollars a day). Has anyone had a similar experience? I thought that we were being taken advantage of because I had reserved the car through Expedia with Avis for an estimated cost of about $400 for the week and ended up being charged more than $900 when it was all said and done. This didn't seem right to me. Any thoughts?

Hi Amy. I'm not exactly clear from your post if you're talking about insurance charges, per se, or *additional* insurance charges. <BR><BR>I believe most, if not all, auto rental companies doing business in Italy require mandatory insurance, at least at some kind of base level.

I believe Capo is correct about renting in Italy. When I was there a bit over a year ago I seem to recall that the collision insurance was mandatory, regardless of whatever additional coverage the renter already may have had through credit cards, etc. That aside, though, it seems that if your husband inadvertently accepted a charge he wished to decline by initialing the "accept" box that's an unfortunate but irreversible mistake. That's the whole point of those little boxes, after all. I don't understand how your weekly rental increased by $500 if the insurance charge was $17 extra a day.

Amy--call Avis directly. we had a similar experience w. Hertz, and after we called them, they not only erased the charges, but sent us a check for $40 for our troubles. this is a good argument for using rental agencies that are well known.

It is my understanding that the full insurance coverage, including CDW, is mandatory in Italy.