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CDW - Collision Damage Waiver
To understand this you must first understand how car rental companies insure their
vehicles. The vehicles themselves are insured under a motor fleet policy that
has a large excess that the car rental companies pay when a vehicle is damaged or
stolen by a person hiring the vehicle. This excess is normally around the
£2,000 each and every loss.
Car rental companies normally pass this excess on to the hirer in two parts.
CDW which reduces the excess to around the £500 mark, the remainder is covered under
excess reimbursement. On both these options you the hirer will pay to remove
the excess. Now it will come as no shock that the amount of money charged
by the car rental companies is far in excess of the amount that they have to pay
to settle their motor fleet excesses.
Now you should know a couple of things about the 'cover' offered by the car rental
companies. Firstly it is not an insurance it is a waiver in terms and conditions
on the car rental agreement and it does not cover every eventuality. For example
it does not normally include damage to windscreen, tyres and the under-body of the
hired car. Ok so you pay over the top for the car rental company's 'cover'
and find that you are still paying for damage to the rental car.
Questor Insurance's car hire insurance on
the other hand covers all damage to the vehicle up to £2,000 ($80,000 for a worldwide
policy) for a single incident or £3,000 in total for a series of incidents each
car rental agreement and includes damage to tyres, windscreen and the under-body
of the vehicle. The great news is that the daily car rental policy starts
at just £2.98 per day and the annual car rental insurance is great value starting
at just £43.68 per year.
So, if you want to save money get your car hire insurance
from Questor Insurance by clicking HERE, then
decline to buy the excess waiver offered to you when you pick-up the vehicle.
Finally, you could check the excess that would be payable under the CDW section
of the car rental agreement, if less than £2,000 ask the car hire company to give
you a price for the car rental without CDW.