Understanding Insurance for Car Rentals

There are many aspects of car rentals besides simply reserving a car for your next trip. Before you call a car rental company, there are a few important factors that you need to understand about insurance in order to ensure that you are covered in the face of an accident.

Understanding Insurance

Not all insurance companies cover you when you are driving a rented car. Consult with your insurance agent to determine what type of coverage you might already have on your policy. If you do not have insurance for rented cars or it is insufficient, you will have to consider your options. The coverage you should be concerned with includes:

• Coverage for damage to other cars: If you were to be involved in an accident, you will need insurance coverage for damage that occurs to the other car or cars involved.
• Coverage for the rental car: If there is any damage to the car that you are driving, you will also need insurance coverage for those damages; not all policies offer coverage for the rented car.
• Loss of Use: If the car rental company is unable to use the car to rent to others due to the damage that occurred during your accident, they could hold you liable for loss of use charges, which could get quite high, depending on how long the car is out of commission. Many insurance companies do not provide this coverage, which is why it is important to ask about it.
• Coverage for towing: In the event that the rental car needs to be towed, there should be adequate insurance to cover those charges as well in order to keep your costs down.

If your automobile insurance company does not offer rental car insurance, you can also check with your credit card company. Many people are surprised to find the unexpected perk of insurance for rental cars provided by their credit card company. As with your insurance agent, you should discuss the actual coverage for rental cars to ensure that you are covered in the face of disaster.