I am sure you don’t wan to end up like the couple who was on their honeymoon in Naples, in Italy. On their last day when they wanted to travel home they noticed that they rental car was stolen in front of their hotel. They got a bill of €2,422 because they didn’t have any excess insurance when they rented their car.
According to a UK-based car hire excess insurer 17% of their claims are from Italy which means that if you rent a car in Italy it is six times more likely that something happens to your rental car than i.e in Switzerland and in Germany. The three other countries which follow Italy are France, Spain and Portugal.
There was also a poll earlier this year in the UK where British holidaymakers pointed out in which European countries are the worst places to drive:
- Italy – 34%
- France – 20%
- and last but not least Spain – 8%.
There is another problem with renting cars in Italy namely penalty tickets issued for driving in historic centres. Private cars, rental cars are banned from these areas however they are very poorly signposted and the drivers may not even aware of that they did something wrong. It can be really shocking to get a credit card bill showing a fine plus a hefty administration charge added by the car hire firm – it can add up to £100.
Car hire excess insurer companies give holidaymakers the chance to purchase super-collision damage waiver insurance from them rather than to buy the rather expensive insurance from the car hire companies at the rental desk. The above mentioned couple from the UK bought a basic hire insurance from British Airways which unfortunately didn’t include the extra insurance. The car hire excess insurance policies start at £40 and it will cover drivers up for a whole year.
This interesting article is from the Guardian, the article’s source can be found here.
