Rental Car Insurance

Rental car insurance is something busy travelers, especially those who frequently travel to another area and needs to lease car for a day or two, should be familiar, or better yet, well versed with.

If you travel regularly for work or business, chances are you rent a car for use during the duration of your stay. Whether traveling alone or with someone else, this article may prove to be a useful source of information about the rental car insurance business.

Understand that not all insurance companies cover rented vehicles. Even some of the large insurance companies do not take the risk and offer coverage for leased vehicles. Hence, it's important to contact your car insurance provider and check if your insurance policy carries coverage for rented cars. If it does, check whether the aspects of coverage such as bodily injury liability, property damage liability, medical payments or personal injury protection, collision, comprehensive physical damage and uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage are extended to rental vehicles. To ensure adequate coverage, ask your insurance company how much the policy ceiling or limit is.

Know who's covered by the insurance policy. Does the policy over just the policy holder or are guest passengers / travel partners covered as well? What about the other drivers listed in the policy – are they covered too?

Read and verify the fine print. If there are restrictions, take note of them. Be wary of other details such as rental car theft and incidents where you may have left the keys in the ignition. You should know what the insurance company can do if unfortunate incidents such as these occur.

Verify with the rental car company and ask all about the insurance related guidelines. It is simply not enough that you pay them for insurance and yet not know exactly what is included in the benefits package. There are a lot of rental car companies that offer waivers (for loss or insurance protection) but for an additional cost the part of the lessee. Weigh in on whether or not buying the waivers will make a any significant difference. Moreover, ask your insurance provider exactly who is covered by the insurance guarantee --- is it just the lessee or does the same package apply to the travel partners? Remember that most, if not all, rental car companies stipulate that they only grant the lessee the authority to drive the car, hence, this may also mean that the insurance only applies to the lessee.

Check for exceptions to the rule. By this we mean that there may be some extra clauses in the insurance policy which can cover the travel companions. It's worth checking with the rental car company. For instance, if you rented the car under a corporate account, you and your fellow employees as well as your employer can be considered as authorized drivers or operators of the vehicle, hence, the insurance policy will apply to everyone. Also, in some select areas in the United States, the legal spouse can be considered an authorized operator or driver of the vehicle as well. He or she can then use the car with the permission of the car lessee. In the event of an accident, the insurance policy will cover the legal spouse.

If you tend to carry a major credit card during trips, ask the credit card company whether or not it entitles you to some insurance coverage. Most major credit card companies nowadays offer travel insurance that includes rental car coverage.

A rental car insurance policy can truly give more protection and peace of mind during trips so why not get one today?