Things To Know About Car Insurance For Rentals

As you plan to take the rental car while you are on a vacation or business trip to a different city, the car rental company would offer you certain additional insurances for the rental car. Having paid hundreds of dollars on the insurance policy for your own car, you would obviously think that does my car insurance cover rentals as well. The answer to this is hidden in the policy papers of your auto insurance. While some insurance policies do cover rentals as well, some don’t. The ones that cover rentals may not cover all possible risks associated with rental cars as well, as it depends on your car insurance coverage and the business policies of your car insurance company.

Hence, without checking the papers, you should not turn down the offer of additional coverage for the rental car. However, it is obvious that as you travel to a different city or state, you would definitely not carry your car insurance papers with you. Hence, to be on the safe side, it is good to know a little bit more on the coverage that is applicable with your current car insurance before you leave for the trip.

Check with your insurance agent

If your car insurance comes with a comprehensive coverage or liability coverage, chances are high that you can go without buying any additional rental insurance. This is all the more applicable if you are renting a car which has a similar value to your car. You need to check with your insurance agent that if your car insurance policy comes with a comprehensive coverage, would you still require additional insurance for driving a rental car or not.

Check with your credit card company

There is another way to go about rental insurances. There are certain credit card companies that offers automobile protection if you pay the renter’s bill with their credit card. You may want to check with your credit card company about their policies on covering the rental car if rented using their card. You need to remember that most of such coverage would be limited to external and physical damage of the rented car, and in most likeliness would not cover any personal injury of the driver or the passengers, or any incidence of theft of personal belongings from the rented car.

Coverage that would be needed while renting a car

To get yourself covered from any personal injury or theft of your belongings, you would have to have the personal effects coverage with your car insurance policy. With such a coverage, the insurer would pay for the loss caused by a personal injury or if the belongings of the policyholder gets stolen from the rental car. If your insurance policy does not have the PEC, you may want to purchase that from the rental car company, in case you are skeptical about the safety of your belongings.

To ensure that the personal injuries are covered, you need to have the personal accident insurance along with your car insurance. Even if your health insurance covers any personal injury sustained by you while driving a rented car, you are good to go. While they cover the medical expenses for the injury, most health insurances do not do any discrimination on whether you were driving your own car or a rented car. Thus, as long as you have a good personal accident insurance or an adequate health insurance, you need not worry about you’re the coverage of your personal injuries while you drive a rented car.

If your car insurance has liability coverage, you will not need that while renting a car. Most insurance policies that come with liability coverage do cover rentals as well. This means that if you cause any damage to any individual or any property with the rented car, which would be covered by the liability coverage of your car insurance. However, before you leave for the trip, you should be checking with your insurance agent whether the liability coverage that you have with your car insurance would cover the rental as well. If it does, nothing like it! If it doesn’t and you feel the need of liability coverage, you can always get the done with the insurance that you would be buying from the car rental company.

Collision or loss damage waiver

Technically speaking, the collision damage waiver (CDW) and the loss damage waiver (LDW) are not insurance products. These are basically waivers which transfers the responsibility of a damage caused by the rented car from you to the car rental company. These waivers also cover the loss of use claims, which can be filed by the rental company for the period during which the rented car would not be used while it gets repaired at the workshop. Usually, the primary car insurance may not cover the ‘loss of use’ claims. Hence, it would be wise if you get that done from the rental company, as you never know what all charges would be claimed by the renters in case the car meets an accident.

Conclusion

To sum it up, and to answer the question of ‘does my car insurance cover rentals’, you now know that if your personal car’s insurance policy has a comprehensive coverage, liability coverage, Personal effects coverage and personal accident insurance, you would not need to buy any additional insurance while you rent a car. In most likeliness, barring certain administrative fees and a few claims like the ‘loss of use’ or ‘loss of value’ claims, all the possible risks would get covered with the policy of your personal car only.

However, there is absolutely no harm in getting this crosschecked with your insurance agent. That would ensure that you do not pay double to get duplicate coverage, as that would be an absolute waste of your hard earned money. That would also save you from any on the spot hassles, as you would certainly not want any last minute surprises coming your way, when you meet an accident and are stranded by the side of the road.

Check out my other guide on Learn About What Happens If Car Insurance Lapses and A Comprehensive Note On Deductible In Car Insurance