Eagle Eye Contents — Fall 2002

First things first, if you are renting a car outside of the United States, you do not have any coverage at all from your personal insurance policy... so buy the coverage!

When you are in the United States, your own auto policy provides whatever coverages you have and their amounts for “temporary substitute” vehicles you rent from Hertz, Avis, National etc. You need to be careful though in that only those coverages you have available on your policy carry over. For example, if you have no collision coverage on your policy, you will have none on your rental vehicle.

The rental contract may also state that if there is a loss to their vehicle, they are entitled to “loss of use” of the damaged vehicle while it is not available to rent. That exposure is usually not covered.

The real problem here is not the coverage but with the rental company’s procedures. You have to give them a credit card to rent a car. If you have an accident, they will take all available credit on the card you used to rent with and hold it until the loss is settled. If you are away on a trip and this happens, and you only have one card, you will have problems paying for anything else you planned to use your card for as all your usable limit will be exhausted.

Some of the premium credit cards “Gold/Platmium” cards cover these situations as part of their services, but you need to check them out before you leave on your trip.

So... Does my insurance cover rental cars? Yes but... you may wish to avoid some or all of these problems by getting the rental car insurance. The added cost may be justified to avoid the hassle. When I rent cars I always get the insurance.