Carhire excess insurance, Europe

[vickster]

Thinking of renting a car later this month in Zante for a couple of days, any recommendations of supplier for Excess insurance (having read plenty of horror stories of charlatan carhire companies ripping people off)

Big blue through Quidco about £4 a day (£7.5k cover)
Any other suggestions?
TIA

 

[Adam4868]

Hired a car in Italy for the week in July.The extra insurance was 35 quid for the week.Think it was axa.

 

[slowmotion]

We have an annual one that cost about £40, I think. I'll dig out the details tomorrow because I can't lay my hands on the paperwork right now.

 

[vickster]

Hired a car in Italy for the week in July.The extra insurance was 35 quid for the week.Think it was axa.

Thanks, the car hire company wants £16 a day (Axa) and only up to 2.5k

 

[Adam4868]

Thanks, the car hire company wants £16 a day (Axa) and only up to 2.5k

I hired the car through "Skyscanner" car hire.The company tried to push extra insurance on us at Pisa airport.But we had the extra Touch wood.Alll went ok,barring a few screaming matches between me and Mrs Adam !

 

[vickster]

We have an annual one that cost about £40, I think. I'll dig out the details tomorrow because I can't lay my hands on the paperwork right now.

Big Blue £42.50 for a year but I don't have plans to travel in Europe again and hire a car in the next 12 months

 

[Spartak]

I've used these in the past...

https://www.icarhireinsurance.com/?...1QqxZ_tIp1bghjDdLSz8vr7ps6FtrxoCFZ4QAvD_BwE#0


Cost was approx. £40 for 12 months. Thankfully didn't need them.

 

[slowmotion]

We got so heartily sick of the car hire people everywhere giving their insurance hard sell when picking up the car, jet-lagged and tired. They spout all sorts of guff...…"of course, if you scratch the knob on the CD player, you aren't covered on the standard policy. £15 a day could buy you peace of mind". Etc.

Utter, utter bastards. The car hire industry is long overdue for an overhaul.

Edit: We were in Avignon a couple of months ago. The hire spivs had a new wheeze. They had a credit card-sized piece of plastic with a clear window in the middle. " If we can see a scratch on the bodywork bigger than the window, you are not covered under the standard policy." Nice try.

 

[Shadow]

My limited experience is that the lesser the headline cost of rental, the more the companies attempt to rip you off with extras; the more long-standing companies (e.g. hertz, avis) tend to have higher upfront rental costs but are less pushy when trying to flog you the extras.

As well as @Spartak's recommendation, also look at this lot - https://www.insurance4carhire.com. Purchased from them a couple of months ago, fortunately did not need their services.

Avoid Goldcar who have a terrible reputation. (Goldcar is a subsidiary of Europcar, who also do not have a great reputation but I have used them numerous times over the years, but not recently, without hassle).

 

[Archie_tect]

I've used these in the past...

https://www.icarhireinsurance.com/?...1QqxZ_tIp1bghjDdLSz8vr7ps6FtrxoCFZ4QAvD_BwE#0


Cost was approx. £40 for 12 months. Thankfully didn't need them.

I took out a similar CDW excess policy in March for a year- it was £52 for the year including the dreaded IPT tax [or whatever its called]. Check that any driver is covered as long as the policyholder hires the car and the drivers are named on the hire agreement..

 

[slowmotion]

We have an annual one that cost about £40, I think. I'll dig out the details tomorrow because I can't lay my hands on the paperwork right now.

We bought ours from insurance4carhire.com. It cost £49.99 for a year. The insurer is AIG.

 

[Mr Celine]

What I do is book online with one of the major companies, usually Europcar, and pick the smallest, cheapest car on offer. When picking the car up I'm polite, attentive and listen carefully to the whole spiel, before agreeing to buy the extra insurance. Without fail this gets me an upgraded car.
This summer at Porto airport the Renault Twingo which I'd bought and paid for became a Clio. The bill for the extras (insurance, toll tag and all the tolls) came to less than the difference in base price between the two cars.
Best ever was Arlanda airport at Stockholm. Only the top rate of insurance covered for stone chips, which were quite likely as our accommodation was 15 miles from the nearest bit of tarmac. By agreeing to each level of insurance in turn with a bit of mild haggling thrown in the VW Polo I'd booked gradually morphed over a series of upgrades into an Audi A4 Quattro TFSI. Great fun on gravel roads.

But if you only want a Twingo or a Polo ......

 

[LarryDuff]

I have used http://carhireexcess.co.uk/ a number of times.
Good value.

 

[Salad Dodger]

I have just come back from a few days in Guernsey. We hired a car for 5 days, and they wanted £40 extra to bring the excess down from 1000 to (I think) 250. Good luck with that......

On a related topic, my daughter toured New Zealand a few years ago. She wanted to hire a car, but at the time was only 20. Most hire companies insisted on drivers being 25 or over. We found one that was called something like rent a wreck, and in a lovely exchange of emails, they agreed to hire a car to her, and she got an oldish but very serviceable Toyota Yaris for her adventure. No hard sell of a ridiculous excess.....