We are a family of 4 planning a trip to Iceland travelling the Ring Road. Looking for options/recommendations for rental cars as the standard US based agencies are pretty steep in their pricing. Any additional coverage that may be recommended in Iceland??

Thanks!

I always start with autoeurope.com

There are a Maine-based broker that works with all the major national/international brands. They provide quotes with various insurance options.

There may well be a reason why rates are high. Autoeurope is the way to go and get great insurance.

Rentals are VERY high this year, I'm seeing 2 x to 3 x the rates I would normally for France. Iceland has low infection rates and is a "green" country for many travellers. Demand may be huge.

Thanks are there local Iceland Rental car companies that anyone can recommend? AutoEurope is good but seems no different than Expedia and other sites

AE takes responsability for the whole process and manages the legal variations. Expedia, as I understand it, does SFA.

Not similar at all really.

Plus AutoEurope has some of the best customer service I've ever experienced in any industry.

My last four experiences with AE prior to Covid in 2019 were -
Munich - cheaper to rent direct with operator
Bordeaux - Cheaper to rent direct
Stockholm - used them as a broker , refused to get involved when I was excess charged for an additional driver
Palermo - refused to get involved when the operator charged my for providing my details to the local police after I'd entered the ZTL. I hadn't been anywhere near the ZTL and 2 years on the police have never contacted me.

I'm a little bored my AE, over the years they have served me well, brilliant 10 years ago but in my eyes they have lost their way.

Be VERY careful in Iceland with the small print of the insurance cover. There is volcanic ash everywhere, if you drive on unmade roads or if it is windy in a rural area and you aren't covered then respray damage will run into 1000s possibly 10,000s. The small print on Icelandic car hire documents is extensive and their physical can be very challenging.

We usually use Auto Europe for international rentals, but for Iceland we ended up going outside of that and renting from Lagoon Car Rental. I don't recall all of the reasoning, but I think it was in part because there was more clarity around things like taking the car on "F" roads (i.e., not solely about price). Lagoon came highly recommended at the time, and we had no issues at all. As BritishCaicos said above, do read the fine print on insurance coverage, etc. This was in 2018, by the way, so I can't speak to pricing or availability in the current environment.

We had good luck with Lagoon Car Rental in Iceland.

https://lagooncarrental.is/

I’d originally booked with both Budget and Avis, but after reading some scathing reviews for both, I switched gears and booked with the highly regarded Lagoon at the last minute, which also happened to be less expensive.

From my trip report (2017):

We were met at the airport by a representative from Lagoon Car Rental, who drove us to their nearby office to collect our manual Renault Clio (considerably less expensive than an automatic), which was advertised as seating five people and holding two large suitcases. HA! The only passengers that would fit into the back of this car would be those without legs. One of our suitcases and our backpacks went in the trunk, the other suitcase claimed the back seat. The price for ten days was 363 Euro, with a 54 Euro deposit (roughly USD $406). Here we also picked up a free Big Map, which would be our best friend over the next 10 days.

Before we went to Iceland everyone suggested we get the coverage for glass and damage caused by gravel, sand, and ash, which isn't covered under the usual CDW sold by the car rental company. We didn't but I can see why people do. We declined all coverage as is our usual MO. We just relied on the coverage offered with our Visa card, and had no issues.

In the midst of this, have we asked when you are going ?

You may be aware that the climate offers some of the most severe driving conditions in the world. Primarily because weather at certain times of the year changes so quickly and planning is essential. The wind does blow cars off the road, combine the warm damp gulf stream with Artic air and then you have snow fall of immense proportions. Locals who travel in winter own cars built for the conditions, also short days in winter.

Thanks so much for all the responses. We are travelling in the first week of Aug this year. I will re-explore AutoEurope and Lagoon car rentals. Google search also showed good customer sat for Lotus car rentals and Blue Car rentals. For coverage, planning to go with what is covered with my Visa card. Not sure if I should take the ash coverage as additional as this may impact my coverage with the Visa card.

I think Autoeurope used to be better than it is now, at least in terms of prices. In last few years, they were not different than booking directly with a company. In fact, I get cheaper rates booking Hertz directly than through Autoeurope, and NO they wouldn't match the price, I asked them, they said they don't match prices due to special loyalty discounts etc (you can often get cheaper rates on HErta with a AAA membership, that was the deal). I've also gotten a cheaper rate directly booking Sixt in some place in France, I think. Maybe it was I just didn't want to go through AE's prepayment requirements and not being able to cancel last minute like you usually can booking directly. For a long trip, ok, but I just wanted a car for a day trip within France and thought I might change my mind depending on schedule/weather once there. You can't do that through AE. You can cancel and get money back (but you have to prepay it first) but I think at least 3 days in advance.

Anyway, their rates weren't any cheaper than the regular rates I could get in France anyway. They used to have better deals. This is only a few data points of my trips, however.

I suspect you just aren't being realistic about car rental rates this year, they are high in many places.