What You Need to Know About Rental Car Insurance Coverage

Rental car insurance is specifically designed to protect the car you are renting in case of an unforeseen event. This will save you from expenses on the repairs of the car should an accident occur or loss of use. Loss of use is the amount of money the car rental company lost since the car is made unavailable. In availing a rental car, you will automatically be presented with an option to have this kind of insurance. This may be a costly option with a daily charge but it can still protect you from huge expenses in case of an accident. However, do not immediately avail this kind of insurance because there are times that you are already covered by your car insurance policy. Thus, before renting a car or going on a travel for a vacation or business, check first your car insurance policy if it already covers rented cars. Otherwise, you might be spending money on something that you are already covered.

There is one exception to this, which is the CDW or collision damage waiver. This covers for the cost of damage and the loss of use in case an accident involving the rented car. In addition, if you are renting a car from other countries, your car insurance policy will probably not apply here. Therefore, it is only right that you avail the extra charge per day for the CDW.

Another thing, some of the credit card companies also offer coverage if you are going to use their card in availing a car for rent. You will not anymore need to purchase the CDW, as long as the credit cards provider has this feature. You can make a call to your credit card provider in order to know if they have this kind of feature. This will allow you to save money by not having two insurance policies that has the same coverage.

As mentioned before, having insurance for your rented car is needed to save you from the costly expenses of repairs if it is damaged while you are using it. However, from the mentioned facts a while ago it is best that you always check if you already have coverage for the car you are going to rent before signing in any of the insurance documents that the car rental company will give you. Failure to do so may result to unnecessary expenses, which defeats the purpose of insurance.