Yet another Car Rental CDW
 

We will be renting a car in Germany in September--our first foray into cars after years of train use. I am confused over whether to take the extra insurance; I've been reading posts here pro and con. Also, it seems like there are multiple types of CDW coverage, some of which are offered by your credit card, and some not. For example, I can pay for CDW in my AutoEurope rental, but see that I am still liable for $960 deductible. They say I can purchase other insurance, but will have to do so locally. What that other insurance is and what it will cost, however, is not specified.

I spoke with Andy Bestor at Gemut. He suggests declining the extra CDW if your credit card company offers coverage. I see that my credit card company will cover CDW, but I don't know if it will cover any or all of the $960. Then I read a post where one's credit card company refused to cover the "Loss of Use" charge after an accident. This is very confusing. What should a prudent traveler do?

Here is what I was hoping to learn from Fodorites:
1. What essential coverages should one have when renting (Basic CDW, Deductible waiver, Loss of use???)

2. Is one more likely to minimize the risk of unanticipated charges by purchasing the insurance from the rental company, purchasing separate insurance such as through Travelguard or equivalent, or trusting your Credit Card company if they say they have the coverage?

3. Which of the above insurance options provides the best coverage at the most reasonable price (don't know if you can answer that, but thought I'd try)?

Any other advice as to advisability of purchasing insurance and/or suggestions on protecting against unexpected and high charges should rental car damage occur.

Thanks.

Call you credit card company and ask them these questions, rather than depending on a bunch of strangers.

You will be covered for CDW and any other coverage required will be included with your rental agreement. No need to get all worked up over this. It's very simple.

You can also do a "search" here on the same question and get more (and confusing) info. Call your cc company.

Curious

I declined all coverage for my rental in Portugal and the damage to the car was fully covered by Visa with no deductible. So check with your credit card company. If they say you are covered, you can assume that you are. But you must decline all other insurance. If renting via Autoeurope, I believe that you must decline their insurance offer at the time of the rental agreement, even though Autoeurope is only a broker. You must further decline insurance with the actual rental agency.

We spend 2 months in Europe every year. We decline all CDW offered by brokers, actual rental companies, etc - and let our Visa/MC Gold or better cover the CDW with 0 deductible. AutoEurope knows that this is what most frequent travelers do & they don't push their CDW at all.

However, the bank that issued you the card will only cover 14 or 31 intended consecutive days (varies by issuer - see their disclosure docs). Therefore, if your issuer covers only 14 days and you rent the car for 16 days and have an accident on the 4th day - you're out of luck. We're quite often gone for more than 31 days, so we rent the car for 15 days in my wife's name on card #1 - then rent another car for 20 days in my name & use card #2. Every time we've don this car "swap" they just rewrote the contract & we kept the same pyhsical car.

The following is from two Fodorites who had accidents several years ago:

Stu, I've posted a long and detailed report on our accident in Wales and the insurance procedures.
But to try to summarize, it took a total of 6 months to fully resolve. (For what it's worth, I'm not sure it would have been any different regardless of who handled the insurance).
When we reported it to Avis (for AutoEurope) they charged us a total of about $600 as a temporary payment against projected damage. This went on our credit card. From there we had quite a bit of confusion, partly because we remained in Europe for two more months and it was difficult getting things handled back and forth. We had some issues with the Wales police refusing to give us a copy of the accident report (saying it contained the names of witnesses whom we might retaliate against -- huh?), and Visa seemed to have a problem getting that report as well. It was finally a call to AutoEurope who in turn were able to get Avis as the owner of the vehicle to get a copy of that. There was also a lot of confusion about the total value of the car. Visa seemed not to understand that the car was considered totalled and had been sold as scrap, so the final bill reflected the amount of damage over what they were able to get for the car as scrap. They kept wanting to get finely itemized repair bills -- yet there were no repairs. Again, much of this confusion resulted because of our distance. In the end, we were finally billed nearly $6000 on the Visa card which covered us, but we immediately contested that, so we didn't actually have to pay it, nor did we have to pay interest on it. Meanwhile within a month of that actual charge, they settled by sending us a check in full for the final amount, so we OK'd the charge on the card and paid it off. The final check included everything, even the towing of the wrecked vehicle and the storage of it until it was sold. In the end, we actually paid even less than our original contract (we reduced it by a day, as we were to have turned the car in the day after the wreck happened, and they even removed the surcharge we were originally being billed for turning it in at an airport, since obviously we weren't!

There was never any question with Avis that Visa would cover us and they said they'd work together on it, which they pretty much did.

We had always taken the full insurance from AutoEurope before as we too didn't want any hassle. But the bottom line is, if we HAD taken the full insurance, it would have ended up costing us about $700 or so more than it did, counting the still necessary deductible and the cost of purchasing that insurance. Was our hassle worth saving $700? YES!

Another report

On my last trip to Europe, in a fit of absent-mindedness or similar temporary brain failure, I took the Auto Europe rate with insurance, rather than relying on my Visa card coverage as I had always done in the past.

Of course, this was the one time I would have an accident. Although it was only a small fender-bender, the damage to the rental car was somewhat over €1100. Then I discovered that the Auto Europe insurance had a deductible of €500. I then wrongly assumed that my Visa would cover the deductible, which of course it would not, as I had not declined all insurance on the rental.

When I called the Visa insurer, I was told that if I had declined all insurance, I would have been covered from the first dollar for collision coverage. I would have been covered as well if I had been required to take the CDW, as in Italy.

This of course applies to CDW. Third party liability comes with the rental.

Moral (for me, anyway): If you have good credit card auto insurance coverage, use it.

Hi JN,

In general, the insurance on from your CC is better and much cheaper (free) than the CDW from the rental agencies.

You can get a copy of the insurance contract from your CC company.

Keep in mind that most do not cover damage to the undercarriage, tires or glass in most circumstances.

((I))

I would also be careful to check for "loss of use" loopholes. "Loss of use" is what the rental car company might charge you for the money they putatively "lost", since the vehicle could not be rented while it's being repaired.

Verify that insurance provided by a credit card issuer will also cover "loss of use" in addition to the actual costs of repair.

CDW coverage provided by the car rental company usually absolves you of any responsibility for "loss of use", but I'd the contractual fine print carefully.

Dredging this up again-

I rented through Auto Europe (my "broker") , who has included CDW in my rate( I didn't ask for it- its just there). I called Visa Platinum Services and told them I was certainly going to decline CDW when it is presented to me by my rental car "company" (Europcar), but am I covered? She couldn't seem to "get it" and went off line to ask her supervisor about the situation. The canned answer I got back was I might not be covered (although it was clear she didn't understand any of it herself).

So I shot an email off to Auto Europe declining all CDW and theft coverage. I suppose I should have done this up front before booking with Auto Europe.

Those of you booking a car need to dig into this issue.

Visa ( and I presume Mastercard) CD coverage seems to be well worth having, its FREE and if you make it primary I can't see how you could get any better coverage at any price.

Rick

Call AutoEurope and revise your rental. I've done that many times when changing destinations, pick ups, new rates in effect, etc. It's no big deal.

To get CDW from Visa/MC, you must decline all other CDWs. Also check maxium days covered - sometimes it's 14 & on some cards its 30 or so. You need to be Gold card or higher for Visa/MC - not sure about American Express, I've read that they cover CDW.

CDW you got from AutoEurope was just that - coverage from AutoEurope, I believe. CDW you initiate at the rental office is from the car rental company (hertz, Avis, etc) - usually with a higher deductible than you get from Visa/MC, and perhaps AutoEurope.

In some countries, like Italy, the country requires you to buy CDW. Some people have reported that they spent a lot of time trying to convince the Italy car rental company that the Visa/MC covered them - and some were successful & some were not. I get CDW when renting in Italy.

Stu Dudley

I am an insurance agent and this question always causes problems, even on domestic rentals.

1. Rental companies are always changing their contracts so we can't be sure what you are signing.

2. Credit Card companies are often changing their coverages.

3. You can be sure that there is probably some part of the damages that the credit card may not cover completely.

4. Rental car companies drastically overcharge for the coverage they may give you. This is a major source of revenue for them. I estimate they probably charge 10 times what the coverage is worth.

My recommendation is to treat it like other insurance decisions. Only insure the losses you can not afford to bear. If it won't bankrupt you to pay an extra $1000 charge, then take the risk yourself and save the money.

My impression was that the credit card CDW covered the part of the damage which your primary car insurer wouldn't cover.

In fact, Amex offers a premium coverage which takes over as the "primary" insurance for the rental, as long as you charge to Amex.

https://www152.americanexpress.com/f...al/coverage.do

scrb-

I had the same impression as well, that the cc coverage was secondary. That may hold in the US, but my reading of the Visa terms (followed by my unsettling conversation with Visa) tells me otherwise for foreign rentals

gforaker-

I hear what you say and agree. The Auto Europe basic coverage limits my liability to about $1000, which is good enough. But Visa cc insurance seems practically bulletproof and free. That is, if you don't violate their terms by accepting CDW coverage when you don't want it.

Here is the Visa Platinum coverage (Capital One) (CDW starting on page 3)if anyone needs help falling asleep:

http://www.capitalone.com/creditcard...BGUI_C1_01_T_Z

Rick

Hi RS,

Sometimes AE includes CDW in their quote because (a) it is required by law - Italy, Ireland - or (b) the rental agency requires it. In those countries, your CC company generally does not offer insurance.

Your CC coverage usually is not secondary. Most of them require that yu decline the CDW.

You can get the policy from your CC company. Read it.

((I))

Ira-

Yes- I got - I read it (its the attachment). I think you are right.

When I tried to decline the CDW via email with Auto Europe- I got back a partially paid voucher with a horrendous rate! ( it would have been nice on AE's part to email me back and say- gee- we can't do this for whatever reason or your price doubles)I was better off just leaving it alone and dealing with thier $1000 or so of out of pocket. I will have to try to call and get back to where I was, at least. This is not going well...I don't have time to deal with this this late in the game - and I am trying to work at the same time....
Rick

Actually- I did get an email from AE (though it came later than the revised voucher). I misunderstood what AE did. They say they cannot at the UK side of AE break out the CDW (maybe that's why its cheaper?) and they just sent a quote for it the way I wanted it from the US side of the house. It would be $473 (with no CDW)vs the appx $310 I already paid with CDW (in pounds). If that's the way it works, I'm going to keep what I have and take on the additional ~$1000 risk- if Visa decides not to cover me - if something happens (fingers crossed).

I might also try to call Gemut and see if I can get something clean from them.

Hi

We rented a car for 28 days in Germany through Gemut (Andy Bestor). Our experience was very good.

We spoke with both MasterCard and Visa and learned that some cover you for 14 while others will cover you for 31 days. Visa offered 31 days of coverage so we used that card to rent the vehicle through.

Both MasterCard and Visa said we HAD to decline the insurance offered by the rental company and Andy Bestor confirmed that.

We had a nice spacious station wagon to use throughout Germany and I would definitely use Gemut again as well as Visa CDW coverage.

Good luck and have a wonderful German experience.

Hi JN,

>I might also try to call Gemut and see if I can get something clean from them. <

Just what I was about to suggest.

((I))

The Ombudsman in the new CNTraveler deals with a case of AE refusing to pay for a totalled car because the driver broke the terms of agreement by driving on an unpaved road! The poor letter writer was stuck with $18,000 bill from the rental company!

Did the story tell HOW AE found out it was an unpaved road???

Stu Dudley

Frankly, if you call your credit card company and they tell you they cover the CDW and there will be NO deductible, instead of a $900 plus charge, then I think this is a no-brainer.
I was sure glad we declined it all and used the credit card coverage when we totalled the car in Wales saving us well over a thousand dollars we would have spent if we had taken the AutoEurope coverage (including paying their deductible).

Neopatrick-

Yes, but how were you able to decline the Auto Europe CDW coverage? For me to decline it costs me about $160. They don't seem to make it easy (or cheap) to decline it. Did you actually decline the AutoEurope coverage, or did you just decline the rental car company's CDW?

The Visa Terms and conditions specifically say that I must "decline the rental car company's" CDW. The way I would like to look at it is that Europcar is my rental car company, AE is my broker. I am certainly going to decline Europcar's CDW. Visa's terms say nothing about brokers. I mean -if Europecar is not the "rental car company" who is?

Rick

HUH? I did the reservation by phone (as always) with AutoEurope. When I said I wanted the full coverage the guy told me to check with my credit card company, and that I was foolish to take the full coverage with AutoEurope as not only was it expensive, but it also had something like a 500 pound deductible. So after I checked with the CC company and found it would indeed cover me, I confirmed the AutoEurope contract without CDW or any "optional" insurance. It was a car with Avis, but I never saw a contract or offer from Avis. I've always appreciated the agent at AutoEurope talking me OUT of taking their full insurance.

Neopatrick-

May I ask what you paid per day for your rental? ( I guess I just did). I did my deal through the UK side of the AE website- there wasn't anyone to help me. I got a rate of about $31/day for a compact 4dr with CDW. On the US side it would be something like $47/day (in France).

It sounds like although you got some help from an AE human, you don't know what the rate would have been WITH CDW. It may have been lower. (?)

And when you say that you never saw a contract or offer from Avis..didn't you sign something (contract) when you picked up your car?

Is there a (gulp)lawyer in the house?


Rick

Rick - I've rented in excess of 30 cars through AutoEurope over the last 25 years.

I ALWAYS have talked to a human - even for England rentals (last time was '04 for UK). I've only taken CDW in Italy, and I got it from AutoEurope (last year). All the other rental CDWs were covered by my Visa or MC.

Hard to imagine that buying insurance would cost less than not buying it - there must be some "glitch" in the communication, IMO. You can cancel the voucher immediatly & start over if you want. AE will refund you the CC deposit. I've done that numerous times with AE & they don't have any problem with it at all - so far. Never tried cancelling it altogether and NOT doing a replacement voucher with them, however.

Also, it's wise to pay the entire rental in advance, which means you pay the whole thing in US dollars. If you pay partially now, and then the remainder when you return the car, you'll pay in Euros or Pounds & subject to a 1% to 5% currency conversion fee. I believe Cap 1 does not charge a conversion fee, so you only get zapped with Visa's 1%.

Don't rely on e-mails (except for the vouchers) - call AutoEurope ASAP & start over if you want.

Regarding the "contract". AE gives you a voucher, which you show to the Europcar people, and then they write a rental contract between you & Europcar. Several times, Europcar charged me some 'surprises" and I have ALWAYS been able to resolve them in my favor through AutoEurope. AutoEurope has electronic access to Europcar's final invoice to you.

Stu Dudley

Well, the actual rate now means nothing as it was almost three years ago. But like all AE contracts I was given a choice of WITH full insurance (inclusive) or WITHOUT (basic). Trust me it was considerably higher WITH -- something over $100 more for a 7 day rental as I recall. What on earth would give you the idea that it might have been cheaper if we HAD taken the insurance? That simply makes no sense. And as I said the agent on the phone had given me prices with and without insurance and was explaining how much money I'd save if I didn't take the plan with insurance. It was enough difference that I put the whole thing on hold for a few days to check it out for myself with my credit card company. I just glanced at the AutoEurope website and for a one week rental London to Cardiff I see rates of something like $190 without insurance and $320. I'd say that's about what we paid. In other words about $27 a day for a Peugeot 206.

And with Auto Europe, the contract was all signed, paid, and finished when we arrived at Avis. There is no question there about insurance or not. They handed us the keys and away we went. I guess we did sign a copy of what we already had been given by AutoEurope. You seem to be making this all sound like there is some devious plot going on between Auto Europe, Avis, and the customer. Nothing could be further from our experience.

Meanwhile I know nothing about dealing with the European offices of AutoEurope. I've only done my contracts through the US office and have always been very happy. If I'm not mistaken AutoEurope is a US based company, so I have no idea why I'd try dealing with their European offices, when they and I are both in the US.

"Hard to imagine that buying insurance would cost less than not buying it"

Yes, indeed.

When I try to re-book my AE rental on the US side of their site I get a price of $370 WITHOUT CDW.

When I try to re-book my AE rental on either the UK, Belgian, French or Irish side of the site I get approximately $295 WITH CDW and no option to remove it.

This seems to be confirmed in the email traffic I am getting from AE and in the "proposed" voucher I got from the US side of the house which is at the HIGHER rate without insurance.

I called Nova just now and spoke to a cheerful Irish lass. She quoted me 245 euro for the rental (but their pickup and drop points are much less convenient). I explained that I wanted NO CDW (several times- I even explained the Visa cc deal). She seemed to be sure the rate did not include it- OK fine- she emailed me the quote. It INCLUDES CDW!

I am waiting for a quote from Gemut.

Weird.

Rick

How do you get to the foreign sites of Auto Europe?

Something like autoeurope.fr?

Or do you just indicate that you live in some Euro. country?

One thing I notice is a lot of sites are using the AE engine to come up with the quotes.

I just did a little comparison, checking a one week rental London to Cardiff on both the UK site and the US site.

You are right that the UK site doesn't give you an option to decline CDW -- probably because it is geared to be used by Brits -- and will their credit cards cover CDW?

Any way, for the same cars I got
the UK site at 138 pounds including CDW. I got the US site at $202 without CDW. You do the math. The US site without CDW is clearly less than the UK site with CDW. Maybe your attempt was some sort of special or just a fluke?

In any case I sure wouldn't take the UK rate when an accident leaves a 750 pound (nearly $1500 deductible) while the US rate declining it and using my credit card has a zero deductible!

Neopatrick-

I certainly agree with your conclusion but I always come up with cheaper rates on ANY of the non-US parts of the AE site.

And so do others -see this-

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=2

However, I tried to duplicate your example and you seem to be correct on a UK hire. It is cheaper to book on the US side ( I got $218 no CDW) vs the UK side ( I got 126 pounds - about $240 with CDW). I suggest you try what I am really doing. France- 10 days Pickup- Nimes Drop- Paris. I think you will get a different result. The non- US side is CONSISTENTLY cheaper , at least on my trip.

But the catch is you can't seem to unbundle CDW from anything but the US side of the site.

Is it not possible that AutoEurope (and the company actually providing the car) make some of their income from commission on the insurance?

Therefore, if you do not want to take and pay for the insurance, they increase the price of the rental to keep their profit on the deal at the same level. This would explain why they are quite happy for you to decline their insurance. In fact, they might even make a bigger profit if you decline the insurance.

They might think a bigger profit is necessary to cover those occasions when the credit card company refuses to pay up for some reason, or is slow to pay.

Incidentally, none of the U.K. credit cards (as far as I am aware) offers free insurance if a card is used to pay for car hire. Since the credit card commission is typically 2.5% or so, I cannot see how it is worth their while to do so.

I am having a lot of trouble understanding the logic of this whole industry. Anyway, for me, the plot thickens.

My quote from Andy Bestor of Gemut- $411 for VW Polo 4 dr.

Kemwel (AE sister co) $377 for a diesel Renault Megaine 4dr (same class CDMR- This is the same class of car I have booked at AE-UK side at about $310 but with CDW)

Neither of these include CDW. I may give Andy a call and see if he can beat Kemwel

rs899

I can confirm that if you book at auto-europe.co.uk, you will get rates that include CDW and no way to get out of it. And yes, for a given country and a given itinerary, it is often cheaper than to book on the US or CAN sites without insurance. This is why I booked our Spanish car with the UK site. It was much, much cheaper.

However, auto-europe.co.uk often offer something called "refundable excess" for just a few pounds more that will take care of the deductible. Have you looked into this? (I checked for pickup Nimes drop Paris, and there were such rates offered for the dates I checked.) best of luck.

sue-

Yes, you are right, I remember that. I'll have a looksee. This is really getting to be more than I ever wanted to know about insurance...

Rick

Sue-

I looked at the refundable excess option. It costs about $30 for the 10 days- not bad , but , does not cover in case the driver (ME) is at fault. So, I think its pretty weak coverage and I would like to stick to what is offered by the Visa credit card folks.

Just for giggles, I called Visa again to see if I just got a bum steer the first time. I got the same story. This time it was much more convincing from them. You cannot accept CDW from anybody and count on Visa to cover you overseas. In the US, it is different.

Following up to my post from yesterday about the CNTraveler Ombudsman article and to answer Stu's question...

First off, the AE I was referring to is American Express, not AutoEurope

Second, they found out the car was on an unpaved road because that's where it was totalled.

Having driven 100s of miles on unpaved roads in rental cars (part of the joy of travelling thru interesting countryside), this was just surprising to me since I never really saw this in the fine print, perhaps because I never looked that closely?!

scrb,
Yes, most credit card coverage is secondary to any other auto insurance you have (except Diners Club and Amex premium rental, as you mentioned, which are primary). However, most personal auto insurance policies issued in the US do not offer coverage outside of the US/Canada, so in other countries, the credit card coverage effectively becomes primary. Also some people don't have personal auto insurance so for them, credit card coverage would also be primary.

An additional benefit of the Amex premium car rental protection is that it offers coverage for up to 42 consecutive days for a flat per rental premium. It also covers a greater variety of vehicle types, many of which are excluded on standard credit card policies.

Thanks Patty.

So the standard insurance is for like 14 days or something?

And the Premium probably covers more expensive vehicle rentals, I presume.

Tricky thing is that you apparently have to enroll. Then each time you rent, it would automatically charge you for the premium.

The standard Amex insurance is 30 days. I don't know about other credit cards. The premium insurance covers up to $75,000 or $100,000 depending on which option you choose (as opposed to $50,000). It also covers full size SUVs, "exotic" cars, and some other types of vehicles which the standard doesn't.

If you only wanted the premium insurance for one rental, you could enroll before your trip and cancel afterwards.

end of my saga-

Andy replied via email that he could match Kenwel's prices. I tried to call him twice and got voicemail. As it is getting pretty late to fix this (plus I didn't want to catch his voicemail later when I had an emergency), I opted to call Kemwel.

The person I got (Ivy)was polite and knowledgable. I had some trouble trying to arrange as good a drop as I had with AE-UK, but finally I settled on one near Bastille , but quite a few blocks away from the center (still makes ne nervous to drive there). When I was ready to book it, she said she couldn't match their own price on the website (?) , so I went into the website and booked it.

I ended up with the same car I had booked at AutoEurope -UK. The Price at Kemwel (which, again, is an AE sister company)was $331 without CDW/theft. The price I had at AE-UK was about $310 WITH CDW/theft. The reason for this exercise was to charge it on my Platinum VISA and (unambiguously) pickup their no-deductable coverage (which includes loss of use, BTW). So , beware of the insurance coverage before you book a car.

I still don't understand AE business model, but it MAY have something to do with CRISS , which is the European rental car standards organization (these are the people who assign the EDMR, CDMR car class codes). I think their standards may play a role in making AE-UK and all the European based brokers roll CDW in their rates. But that hurts us here in the US who are using a credit card as CDW insurance.

Rick

Credit cards won't cover you if you rent a "luxury" model, so if the car you get is a full-size Mercedes with auto transmission, you need to think about getting separate CDW coverage.

You've been given a lot of good and accurate advice here, but in general credit-card CDW coverage is secondary.

If you are going to buy CDW coverage, it's almost always cheaper to buy from a company like Travel Guard. You are often charged twice as much by the car-rental company.

Doug-

In the case of Visa Platinum at least , their coverage is "primary coverage outside of your country of residence." That is a quote from their terms and conditions. I would encourage travelers to read the terms of their cc coverage before they rent something, to avoid the mess I went through.

Rick