The following is copied from my credit card site regarding insurances.<BR><BR>If You will be making the claim, You must call the claims administrator within 48 hours of the damage/theft having occurred. Your claim must be submitted with as much documentation, requested below, as possible within 45 days of discovering the loss/damage. You will need to provide all documentation within 90 days of the date of damage or theft to the claims administrator at the address provided below. <BR>The following claim documentation is required: <BR><BR>the claim form, completed and signed. <BR>Your Visa sales draft showing that the rental was paid in full with the Visa card, or the Visa sales draft showing the balance of charges for the rental if a points program was used to pay for part of the rental. <BR>the original copy of the vehicle rental agreement. <BR>accident or damage report, if available. <BR>the itemized repair bill, or if not available, a copy of the estimate. <BR>receipt for paid repairs. <BR>police report, when available. <BR>copy of statement if billed to account. <BR><BR><BR>I have never done it, but I see questions about parking a car outside Venice or Paris for four days. What are the implications if the theft or damage is not discovered for 48 hours, or if it takes more than 90 days to get the documentation to the insurer<BR>?

That's exactly the reason to spend the extra money and get CDW from the rental agency.. My time compling all that documentation is more valuable than the cost

The documentation they require does not sound at all unreasonable. In several cases they say "if available". Any insurance claim requires documentation. If you don't discover a theft or damage until you get back to your car that would be the start of the 48 hours. You can't report it to the police or VISA or anyone until you discover it. How would anyone know if it happened two days or two minutes before. The only problem I see with using Visa for insurance is that some car rental companies will put the amount on your card thus maxing it out if the damage is alot (or if the car is stolen). I've talked to Visa and to the issuing bank who say you eventually get this all back (including interest) but unless you have another credit card with you you couldn't charge anything else for the rest of the trip. I always have a Visa and a master card so that's not a problem. To all the people on this board who say 'just take the xtra insurance' - it must be nice to have so much money, but for some of us, several hundred dollars saved is significant.

JC even if you take out the insurance offered by the rental company there is sometimes a "nonwaiverable excess" still in effect. We call it deductible which is usually several hundreds of dollars in case of a collision and even more in case of theft.<BR>And that is significant to some of us too. Do not think that just because you take insurance when renting a car, you will get off scot free every time. You must read the fine print.

Last month I peppered the board with car insurance questions and got lots of helpful advice. I finally decided to take the "inclusive" rate, primarily based on this response: Is your French (Italian, German, you fill in...) good enough to have a basic conversation with the police office or other driver if you're invovled in a collision? My French is passable but that scenerio--standing on the side of the road, upset and confused, trying to get all the information for my credit card's coverage--clinched it for me. So by choosing the inclusive rate, I hope that I've bought a little extra hassle insurance. We'll see. My trip is still three weeks away. (For the record, I chose Auto Europe because in my case the deductibles were the lowest.)

Topping self

I believe in the two seperate visa cards and three seperate atm card theory also. My question was really the 48 hour bit. I have no understanding of law beyond that going too fast can cost a lot. <BR>Also I see Avis in UK now have a deductible of &pound;600 that you can reduce to &pound;100 for even more money. This makes the insurance about ten times the annual cost of a fancier credit card. The credit card appears to have a deductible of $0 since none is mentioned in the umpteen pages.

This scares me!! Based on the opinions on these posts, I've always thougut that the "all inclusive" was the way to go. Now I'm wondering... Could those of you who are knowledgeable please straighten me out?? Thanks. Cal

If you are not on a budget (e.g. have plenty of money) then the all inclusive will possibly save you some paperwork - or "hassel" as people refer to it. You apparently just walk away after returning your damaged vehicle. But as pointed out above, in addition to the extra cost of the all inclusive insurance there will also be some deductible. So getting the insurance from the rental agency will add many hundreds of dollars to the cost of your rental if it's for more than a few days. The credit card insurance is definitly less expensive and works well but has the hassel of having to submit paper work and probably not be able to use your card until it is all setteled.