You are really making this a LOT more complicated than necessary. The easiest is to rent a car and have the insurance covered by your visa

OR, you can rent a car that has CDW/top cover/etc included, OR, rent a car w/o ins included and pay for it on top of the rental fee.

If you want other input - start a new thread re rental car insurance. This info is buried at the bottom of a very long thread w/ the only ones still following it being a couple of us who have rented cars in the UK/Scotland many times and one who has never been there before.

dbaker: I e-mailed EnterpriseUK and finally got their response . . . .

An IDP is <u>not</u> required.

&quot;&quot;Response (Christy) - 06/29/2006 09:42 AM
Thank you for your e-mail.

It is not required, you just need your valid drivers licence and passport.&quot;

dbaker,

I am not sure you can use cash to rent your car in Europe. Even in U.S. most rental sites wont even accept debit cards. With a credit card, they know they can always put additional charge should there is anything happened. Think about it this common sense way, How much cash deposit they might ask you to put down if indeed cash is accpeted?

As for insurance - here are the 3 basic areas:

1) The 3rd party liability - injury to others, (not you) and damage to others' properties. Most such is built into the rental rate, as such liability usually is carried by the owner, and in rental car case, it is the rental car companies themselves. I know in Canada when we rented from Thrifty, this part was clearly stated on the contract that the rate covered 3rd party. Since I wasn't sure about UK, so I email Avis to get a definite answer. Because Avis said it was included, I assume this may be the law requirement thus would apply to other companies as well. But the good and safe way is to get an answer from the company itself.

2) The CDW, the theft, of the rental car itself - you can either buy that expensive insurance provided by rental car company and be done with it. Or you can count on the credit card coverage. (as you already knew, your own car policy wont do any good aboard). To use credit card coverage, you must pay your rental car cost with the CC and DECLINE all and any insurance coverage products from rental car company. Important.
Make sure the CC you intend to use for this purpose DOES PROVIDE SUCH COVERAGE. Not every Visa/MC provides such. Case in point, I have a Visa issued by MBNA from Schwab, which does NOT charge the pesky 3% foreign currency conversion fee - BUT I CANNOT USE IT FOR RENTAL CAR AS IT DOES NOT PROVIDE ANY COVERAGE.
I am not familiar with Visa but Visa Signature card and Visa Platinum card do provide coverages with some differences in the degree of coverage (Signature is better).
With Mastercard, you can even call MC ASSIST and talk to rental car insurance dept to find out if your MC carries coverage benefit or not. In fact, Citi now does not even field the calls, the CSR direct any rental car insurance questions to MC ASSIST.

3) The insurances for you yourself and the travelling party with you. That you have to buy coverage separately if you want to be on the safe side.

AMEX has a subsidiary offers good and affordable travel insurances - especially in terms of medical evacuation. I have not looked in details for a long time so dont know the newest products available. But you may want to check the details here:

https://www.globaltravelshield.com/rootGTS/GTS1001.jsp

All your insurance concerns are NOT trivial - it is a good precaution to make sure you understand what is covered and what may be needed to supplement. Some people like to take chance, others tend to be more prudent. Personally we tend to be somewhere in between, but always make sure the 3rd party and the CDW/Theft are covered. We are quite confident in our own health and our driving skills therefore we do not think about getting insurance for ourselves.

I hope the above practical information would be of help to you.

Thanks for checking for me janis. Sounds like it is just legaleze that they put on the email and then they don't enforce it. Although I already got my permit, it will be good info for others. Thanks again.

To nho9504

Thank you so much, you are very thoughtful to have gone to so much trouble about my questions - although some other non-travel-savy people may have similar questions and I hope they will read this and get the info they need. I believe I understand now.

I got my historic scotland passes and my fringe tickets, as well as my new book Scotland the Best, which I absolutely love! Although I probably won't alter my route at this point, I am having a lot of fun going through everything in his book that is already on my route - from delis, to pottery shops, to nice beach walks. This is a great resource and I am relieved to see that some of the things I am going out of my way to see &amp; do are on his &quot;best&quot; list, so I feel confident I am going to get a great &quot;taste&quot; of what Scotland is all about in our short time there. I am afraid I will want to go back over and over again :o) based on what others say, so I will have to plan ahead earlier next time and go off-season as the plane tickets were quite expensive this time and I can't do that all the time. I wish we did have more time to stay in one area for a lengthy time, but alas, we only have a week off work this summer. This trip will be a whirlwind, but will give us an idea of what our &quot;favorites&quot; are for next time. I truly appreciate all the advise I've received.

One question - Is there a good way to PRINT out this entire thread so that I can highlight things I want to remember when we go on our trip? I thought maybe I could cut &amp; paste it into a word document?

Copy and Paste.

Can anyone give me some advice about what we can do on a Sunday night in the Edinburgh area? We will be at Craigmiller castle until it closes at 6:30 and won't want to go back to our hotel until a few hours later. We are looking for something to do in the area with 1/2 drive or less. We are not keen on bars or pubs and we don't care for fine dining either. Any good walks that we could do from 6:30 until dark in the area (besides Arthur's seat)? I do like shopping at smaller shops, but those will be closed after 6:30 on Sunday, won't they? Maybe a coastal area or beach? Thanks for suggestions.

I meant to say 1/2 hour driving time or less