Car Insurance - if our fault
 

I have been reading a ton of posts on auto insurance and I called both my auto insurance here in the states and my credit card company. My auto insurance (Allstate) does not cover us out of the country. So that's that. Our credit card only covers the cost of the physical vehicle we have rented. My concern - if we hit another vehicle and totaled their car and injured them, we need insurance. So if it was you, would you get the full coverage at (for example) autoeurope.com and that would cover an incident like the one I have described? Our medical would cover us, our car would be covered by our cc - but what about the other people involved if it happened to be our fault? Where would I get insurance for that?

Thoughts?

thanks!

emh

Rather than buying expensive rental insurance, get it in a travel policy. Take a look at what's available at tripadvisor.com, where you can see a comparative chart.

Also, check to see what kind of coverage your credit card includes. Sometimes it's quite good.

I think third party liability insurance is mandatory in some countries in Europe. If not, I recommend you get it. I used to work for a rental car company (years ago), and I've seen the headache that follows after a customer gets into an accident and finds out he has no or little coverage, often with high deductibles. I personally always get coverage--you just never know. Especially in Europe where people drive on the different side of the road.

My credit card company only covers the physical car I am driving - no other coverage. I want coverage for if we hit someone and they try to sue us, etc. I want to make sure their vehicle and bodies are covered. Where would you go for that for out of country insurance? I will check tripadvisor.com too.

Thanks.

Check if a rental might include liability insurance, which would cover the person you hit but not damage to your vehicle.

Ok, now I'm really confused.

My credit card requires me to decline all other coverage offered by the car rental people in order to get coverage under the cc. But if the cc doesn't cover EVERYTHING, how is one supposed to get full coverage?

Does it all depend on the cc? For example, the ones offering only property damage do NOT require that you decline coverage from the car rental?

That fine print is so maddening.

Most car rentals in Europe include third party liability with the rental price. This is not the insurance that your credit card company requires that you refuse. The ccc requires you to refuse all CDW (Comprehensive & Collision) coverage before they will provide insurance for the car you are driving. Also, check the amount they will cover. Some travel insurance companies only provide up to $25,000 in coverage. One car we rented retailed for 17,500 GBP which is about $35,000. That would mean we would have had to pay about $10,000 out of pocket if we totalled the car. Sometimes you can save money by spending it.

If you do the Lease buy back you are covered completely for all the CDW etc...no excess limitations. The liability was covered by another post. Your personal umbrella liability coverage would also cover you.

I did a lease buy back..you pay for 17 days, but can return it earlier, of course. I returned it at 16 days. It was cheaper than doing the straight rental with the CDW... brand new A/C, automatic. vehicle and 100% coverage...

Under EU law, all rental cars come with third-party insurance - unlimited or very high limit, like £20M, for claims. You cannot rent one without as it's illegal to drive without liability insurance.
So the only insurance you have to decline is CDW and Super CDW (or excess waiver etc), in order to get your credit car coverage.
Make sure you take all your credit card company documentation to the rental station to show adequate coverage.

Hi eh,


If you hurt someone else or their property, that is "third party" liability.

By law, third party insurance is provided by the rental agency.

Just worry about paying for damage to your rental car.

AMEX has extra cost insurance that also provides for injuries to driver and passengers in your car if you use their card and decline CDW.

The insurance provided by AE pays for the deductible on the CDW. Read the fine print, as it doesn't cover glass, tires, etc.

((I))

ira is right, and I think you're confusing the statement from your cc company that says you must refuse all OPTIONAL insurance as meaning that there won't be any insurance with the car. There will be.

I hope I didn't confuse the OP by butting in to this thread (I'm the one who muddied the waters by bringing up the "decline all other insurance question). But thank you to everyone who answered and clarified things. Sorry to interrupt the thread.

Jolie, I don't think your post muddied the waters. In fact, I think it gave a good opportunity to clear up all that "decline all insurance" confusion, which I believe a lot of people have.

If you're buying travel insurance check to see if that covers other people/cars if the accident is your fault.

Or buy full coverage from the rental company.

Or - if you're judgement proof - go bare - but I assumeyou're asking since you're not judgement proof.

(And it's not Allstate - no US car insurance policy covers anything but the US and Canada.)

I've never had an accident in my life - my husband has been in one rear-ender, we just don't want to take the chance of something happening and then ruining us for years to come.

So I guess what I am getting from all of this is that our credit card will cover our car and our medical will cover us. Then the liability from the rental company will cover the other car and driver and I will call my insurance company on Monday and see if our umbrella policy would pick up anything after the basic insurance expired.

Does that sound right? I tried insuremytrip.com but they don't have the kind of insurance we would need.

emh

Your credit card may not cover the full amount of the rental card. That is the question that you need to ask them. What limits.

eholden, yes, that does sound right. We have checked with our umbrella policies and we would be covered for liability in the event nothing else covered us -- up to $2 million.

And having totalled a car in Wales and being charged a little over $6000 for it, let me say that yes, the credit card did pay for every penny -- right down to the towing away of the wreck, the storage of it before it was sold as scrap, our taxi ride to the train station, and would you believe even the 3% foreign transaction fee the credit card itself charged us for everything was also reimbursed. Fortunately we had no injuries, and the only damage to the other vehicle (a heavy utility trailer) was a broken tail light, which we never heard anything more about. Yes, the wreck was our fault.

Wow, that is exactly what I was thinking about. So I am hoping that our umbrella policy covers "out of country". If that is so, then we should be set.

emh

We had our insurance rep check seven different umbrella policies and no one will cover out of the country. So our best option would be to just be really careful (which is a given) and the rental company will be covering any damage of a third party.

Thanks everyone for your input.

emh

Here is a pretty good article for you to read:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel...chi-travel-hed

Liability (3rd Party) is mandatory and included in price. I would check it, though.

Be careful with some of the policies that you can putchase..Travel Guard, etc. Some of the rental car companies do not honor them. I would check that out before buying it and finding that it is no good!!

I prefer the lease buy back...everything covered 100%. That is the ONLY way for me.

grace - thank you for the article. This breaks it down and confirms what I have been told. I will make the final decision on the lease/buy back plan after I read the liability agreement, etc. when we get there. We reserved with our VISA, so that is a start.

Thanks again. It was a very informative article.

emh

I thought the article was well done.

Here is the Kemwel lease buy back site:

http://www.kemwel.com/buyback_home.cfm

I think they have merged with Auto Europe.

You have to make arrangements here, in advance. I used it last fall for a trip. Picked it up upon arrival in Toulouse and dropped it off before departure in Biarritz. I had it for 16 days....price was better than a rental...and 100% covered in every way..no last minute fill up..the way to go unless you only need a car for a few days...

I have difficulty believing that the buy back program is cheaper for 17 days (that's the minimum) than an ordinary rental. I just checked Kemwel, and the lease costs $928. A rental from Autoeurope UK costs ?268 (about $530) for the same period of time, same one way pick-up and drop-off. In both cases I specified the smallest car available. Am I missing something?

The question mark should be a GBP pound sign.

When I did my Kemwel lease for trip in Sept/Oct. I checked the lease against the rental. I used the automatic, A/C vehicle as that is what I drive. I also added the CDW to the rental. The Kemwel leaseback was considerably cheaper. I, of course, do not have those figuers available at this time. Someone else recenly ran into the same thing and mentioned it. Maybe it is because you are using the cheapest vehicles etc....

I just checked and it is cheaper for the Kemwel lease buy back....$970.27 against $1234.15 for a rental from Auto Europe...Automatic and A/C...even the rental without CDW was $1134.91...easy to check....

I guess that anyone wishing an automatic will have to pay an enormous premium when renting. BTW, last year I upgraded because I wanted to make sure that I had AC, and when I picked up the car the agent at Europcar told me that all their cars, no matter the size, had AC.