Rental Car Insurance – Do I need it?
tony • October 22, 2018
If you’ve ever rented a car, you’ve probably had the clerk at the rental car counter ask if you’d like to purchase insurance for their vehicle. This begs the question, does your car insurance cover their vehicle?
The answer is generally yes but there are three things you need to know:
- You’ll want to ensure you have comprehensive and collision coverage on your auto insurance. These are the coverages that insure the vehicle itself against theft, storm damage, cracked windshield, car accidents, etc. Your auto insurance will typically extend to a rental car and will provide coverage as if you were driving your own car. So if you have a liability only policy, you more than likely need to purchase insurance from the rental car company to ensure the rental car is adequately covered.
- You’ll need to consider how long you’ll be renting the vehicle and where you’ll be renting the vehicle. Many auto insurance carriers will only cover a rental car for a certain number of consecutive days – perhaps 30 days or so. If you’ll be going on an extended trip, you’ll need to check your policy. Also, if you are taking a trip to another country you’ll need to purchase their insurance. Many auto insurance policy limit coverage to the US and its territories.
- Auto insurance doesn’t typically cover loss of use or diminished value. This is important because if you wreck a rental car, the rental car company will generally charge you for diminished value of the vehicle. Diminished value means the vehicle is now worth less than it was prior to the accident. As such, the rental car company will want you to pay the difference. Additionally, they’ll look to be reimbursed for the time the vehicle was out of service due to repairs. This means that if it takes 30 days to repair the car you wrecked, they couldn’t rent out the vehicle for those 30 days and therefore the rental car company will want you to reimburse them. The rental car company will generally waive these additional charges if your purchase their insurance but won’t waive them if you use your own insurance to cover their car.
Before you rent a vehicle, call you insurance company or your agent to ensure you’ll be adequately covered. Failure to ensure you’re adequately covered can end up costing you 10’s of thousands of dollars out of pocket if you get in an accident.
Want an auto insurance quote from a local agent in Melbourne, FL? Click Here to get started!
Want more tips like this?
Did you know we’re building amazing technology that will simplify insurance shopping? Want to learn more – Click Here and let us know!
Join the Chrinco.com community and follow us as we not only provide insurance tips to consumers but are also developing a new way to shop for insurance. Join the journey that we believe will change an industry.
Chrinco.com – Insurance Simplified.
The post Rental Car Insurance – Do I need it? appeared first on Chrinco.
If you’re thinking about getting an alarm on your home here’s what you need to know about the discounts.
It’s no secret that things are getting more and more expensive. From food prices to energy prices, it seems like all corners of the economy are being affected. We’re seeing supply chain issues, raw material shortages and labor supply issues all putting inflationary pressures on most consumables. And one area we’re seeing significant increases is in the cost to build a home.
Today we’re discussing one of the most common reasons for a home insurance claim denial but before we get there, let’s briefly discuss what a home insurance policy is and what it is not.
Recently we had a customer call in to let us know that he had sold one of his cars and that he would like the vehicle removed from his policy. While talking to the customer he mentioned that he sold the vehicle for $4,000 more than what he paid for it. While that is great news for him it underscores a potential issue in the auto insurance marketplace that we expect will trickle down to you, the consumer, later this year.
If you have a mortgage with an escrow account, you have likely or will likely experience a time when your home insurance fails to get paid by your mortgage servicer before its expiration. This can be a terribly frustrating time for you. But if you live in Florida, just know that the state of Florida has your back.
Recently, FEMA rolled out Risk Rating 2.0 and the rollout has been quite shocking for many Florida residents. Risk Rating 2.0 is a methodology used to accurately charge for flood insurance based upon a property’s own unique flood risks. Prior to Risk Rating 2.0 flood insurance rates were largely determined by what flood zone a property was located in.
It’s no secret that COVID has changed the way many companies are doing business in the United States and the same is true for auto insurance carriers as well. With all the supply chain issues and manufacturing shortages, we’re not only seeing the price of new and used automobiles increase in value, which is increasing the cost to insure, but more importantly we’re seeing vehicles take longer and longer to get repaired after a covered claim. In fact, we’ve seen completely repaired vehicles sit for months waiting for a chip. We’ve seen parts that used to take days to come in, take months. We’ve seen some parts come in and have to sit for weeks while other parts make their way to the repair facility.
Recently, we have received a number of calls from customers inquiring as to whether the installation of solar panels will affect their home insurance.
When buying a condo, part of your association dues goes towards a master condo insurance policy purchased by the condo association. This policy insures the condo building for covered losses. An HO6 policy picks up where the master policy ends and pays for the internal structures to your particular condo unit.
Florida is considered the lightning capital of the US with 17 of the top 30 cities nationwide for lightning. Strikes. As such, the question we commonly get asked is “does home insurance cover lightning strikes?”