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Is there a good source of info on rental car liability insurance? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by vatlark to c/[email protected]

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I want to know if the car I'm renting comes with liability insurance. I just want to be sure that if I am at fault in an accident, that the other car will be covered. Lets try to ignore any personal car insurance policy and let's ignore collision insurance for now.

I am under the impression that in many countries they are required to give you liability insurance when you rent the car, but I don't have a good source. Many articles have mixed information.

For the US, this article says:

For a registered car rental company in the US, they must provide a minimum level of liability protection for cars they rent out.

But this other article says

In the U.S., every state requires a minimum amount of liability insurance on car insurance policies, so you may already have liability coverage through your personal auto insurance.

Which sounds like in the US your personal insurance is all you have.

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[–] bandwidthcrisis 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

When I rent in the UK they always tell my that each incident will incur a fixed penalty (e.g. large scratch: £1000, damaged windscreen: £1000) presumably to cover loss of earnings on the vehicle, but also to pressure me into purchasing excess protection.

So I wonder if having the extra insurance would cover these "fine" types of charges that are beyond the cost of repair.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes that's the whole point of it. It's called excess insurance. It's insurance for insurance 😂

I've never claimed on it but looking at the reviews there have been very few complaints

[–] bandwidthcrisis 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I know that it is to cover the excess of damage costs.

I'm asking if they would only pay "reasonable" repair costs if the rental company charges me 1 or 2 thousand for just a large scratch, for instance, which is what Enterprise tell me that they do. (It's usually £1000 but was £2000 when I had a larger vehicle).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I dunno if you're misunderstanding what "excess" is

The car hire company insures you to drive the car, same as you would do with your own car, meaning that's what you pay towards the cost of repair while the insurance company pays the rest.

The excess is what you pay towards the repair cost before the insurance company covers the rest

It doesn't matter whether the damage is a tiny scratch charged at 1000, or the car is totally written off, you only pay the amount you agreed beforehand

You're still insured through the car hire company, the extra insurance is to cover the excess, no matter what the repair company charges, that's not your problem

[–] bandwidthcrisis 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The distinction that I'm concerned about is that this isn't a charge from the repair company, it's a fee decided by the rental company. Unrelated to the cost of the repair.

It wasn't an invented example, the figures I gave are what they tell me they will bill me for any repair that's needed.

So thank you for clarifying, but I don't think that I'm musunderstanding what an excess is. I'm just wondering if the excess protection would still cover these arbitrary charges from the _rental company.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

In Europe, yes it does. In the US, I wouldn't trust anycunt 😂