Buckrogers

Anyone have any experince on the above. Looking for some advice on all of the different insurence policys avaiable?

Thanks in advance.

Buck

Markus

Hi,
I'm currently living in Canada, and when I first came over in April I had to get a hire car for a few weeks, plus I travel a bit on company business so need to hire the odd car in the USA too.

I now why you are asking as it is sooooooo confusing. I did at first take some middle policy they offered, but that ended up costing a fortune, what I did the last time was take the lowest policy available, if you're pretty carefull you should be ok.

What you might like to do is see if your UK insurance covers you in the USA/Canada, also, if you happen to have American Express, check that out too, my boss has amex and that would cover his insurance costs over here, so he never had to take any insurance out.

It really is a big con!

hope this is of some help.

douglasb

Buck - IIRC, just to complicate things the insurance requirements vary from state to state so it will depend on where you are renting the car. Some states have tried to clarify things by insisting that CDW (collision damage waiver) and a sensible amount of liability cover is included and is not an extra.

The international rental companies have websites where you can explore the prices and insurance cover.

Something else that you will notice if you use the websites. You will be asked for your country of origin. Play around with this option and see how much you can save by saying that your country of origin is US rather than UK. It looks like they set the prices based on what they think you will pay.

If you can use an American friend's address when you pick the car up, you could save money.

Doug

jaf01uk

When we went across we arranged the car hire and insurance cover here with the travel agent before we went and just had to pick the car up, they did try to sell us "an upgraded policy" but what we had was sufficient, and if I remember worked out cheaper as well,

SJ_Skyline

It all depends on what you are going for, a quick business trip, a fly drive holiday or a couple of months bumming around.

I've done Virgin fly-drive holidays to the states twice with no aggro whatsoever, can't recommend them highly enough.

Rich

Buckrogers

Thanks for the advice.

If it helps, we are going for two week holiday, travelling to / from Vancouver to Whistler and using them as run arounds whilst at Whistler. We are hiring two big 4x4's.