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Good article by S Biddle here
https://traveltalk.nz/reviews-tips/travel-tips/beginners-guide-rental-car-insurance/
One thing to keep in mind when buying excess waivers from 3rd parties/aggregators or relying on travel insurance for this is that the rental car firm will charge your card straight away when there is any damage.
In my case it took about 8 weeks to get this refunded from the rental car firm. I chased and pestered them a lot. Not sure how quickly thing would have moved if I hadn’t. (The car I rented suffered damage, another party was at fault, I had all their details.) I had bought the excess-reduction package so we were only talking $350 and my card was in credit. I assume I would have incurred interest charges if that was not the case and these could add up when the excess is upwards of the standard $3000 or so. I wouldn’t fancy your chances of recovering the interest from the rental car firm. (Not easily anyway, under the CGA you could have a case I guess , consequential damages and all that.)
One thing to keep in mind when buying excess waivers from 3rd parties/aggregators or relying on travel insurance for this is that the rental car firm will charge your card straight away when there is any damage.
That is a good point. I’ve never worried too much about that because I could cover the cost in the short term without any problem, but a good many people would not. Given the often large difference between excess reduction from the rental company directly vs. 3rd party insurance, you’d have to add that into your personal risk equation. We’ll see if we can get something added to the article 🙂
That’s actually a good point.
I remember hiring a car a few months ago in Queenstown from Apex who really put the hard sell on me for insurance despite me insisting I had no need for it.
In reality I can understand that probably 99% of NZ domestic hirers have no insurance cover (and I’m sure some think they probably think they with a credit card without realising it won’t cover domestic travel) but after me insisting for about the 3rd time I didn’t need it she then proceeded to tell me that it would be such a burden on me because I’d have the excess charged to my credit card immediately and it could take “months” to get the money back from the travel insurance company.
It was a slightly annoying exercise to go through, but then again hiring from Apex is an annoying exercise every day of the week – why they can’t at least have a computer system to store hirers details so they don’t have to do everything manually is beyond me. The amount of paperwork generated by them for a single hire is incredible.
Their target market may be tourists but there are still plenty of NZers who hire vehicles from them. It’s such a pain compared to somebody like Thrifty who I love who are just so efficient.
Agreed. I like the ‘worry-free’ zero-excess option from Thrifty, and it’s reasonable value for money with an AA membership.
Once or twice a year I tend to do a WLG-AKL re-locator from Budget. On those occasions I spend $35 on a couple of days domestic travel insurance to cover the excess (wearing the risk described in my OP). Significantly cheaper than the waiver that Budget offer. The agent always asks if Iwant to buy it but never with any undue pressure.
The Thrifty/AA deals are great – I’ve had a couple of occasions where I’ve saved over $100 from the cheapest Thrifty rates (which are normally cheaper than every other rental company at Auckland airport anyway) with the AA deal.
I love the Thrifty Metro Car deals at Auckland which is only $74 for the day for a car incl full insurance and airport charges with an AA membership ($79 without). There were a couple of times last year when the Metro Car deal wasn’t available the day before has seen daily prices surge at all companies but the AA membership has offered huge discounts bring it back down well under $100.
It does really make you wonder how justified the airport charges are when some companies are trying to charge $40 for airport fees yet Thrifty can offer a car for the day with airport fees and full $0 excess cover for $74!
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