Car hire: "walk away" insurance? and other questions

Our last trip to Scotland, we rented thru Arnold Clark. We picked up in downtown Inverness and dropped off at the Edinburgh airport, no extra charge - or if it was buried in the price, they still had the best rate. Very good rental experience.

They’ve got many locations in both Scotland and England.

Thank you, yes: Arnold Clark is on my short list for Scotland.

What did you do about the CDW/LDW? Were you able to buy "walk away" coverage if you needed it?

Thank you.

Sorry, but there are indeed horror stories (if you call 6 months to settlement and endless rounds of paperwork horror stories). Not something I relish.

AutoEurope.com is a car rental broker. Dealing directly with, say, Enterprise, on the other hand, does not involve a car rental broker.

MJ: I used Arnold Clark in Scotland (pick up and drop off at Glasgow airport). I don't remember the terminology they used but we got what was essentially full coverage including tires, hubcaps, windows etc. I think there was a deductible but it was relatively small. Certainly less than $150. They also matched a price I found on Ryan Air and they upgraded us to a car that came with GPS (instead of us paying for a Garmin) for no extra charge.

Trotter: Thank you. This aligns with other excellent reports of Arnold Clark. I will dig more for the right language for the complete coverage.

MJ, we’ve never purchased insurance, as we’ve a) used our Chase VISA card to rent, and b) haven’t had collisions, theft, damage. Maybe just lucky,

Oh, there was one time in Sicily, hit a curb, flattened the tire and dinged the rim. The car didn’t have a spare, and there wasn’t a rental office close by. They (Europcar, as I recall) brought us a replacenent car from their main office in the morning, took the original back with them, and charged about $150 for the wheel/tire damage. No additional paperwork, or drawn-out process. Stranded for a good part of the day, as they couldn’t get to us sooner. Maybe insurance would’ve fixed all that on the spot? Or, maybe that wouldn’t have been very easy, nor “free?”

Cyn: Thank you. I m slowly untangling "super cover", "full cover" and so on. A large part of my confusion/concern stems from not yet understanding the vocabulary. You comment is very helpful.

In the UK there are two types of car insurance – third party and fully comprehensive.

Third party offers the most basic level of protection, covering injuries or damage you cause to another person, their vehicle or their property. It is a legal requirement, and you can’t drive a car without it. The car rental company will include this insurance in their rental agreement. You can’t decline it.

Fully comprehensive covers damage to the car hire vehicle, your legal and your medical costs. This is the one the car rental company would like you to buy from them. You can decline it and use alternative insurance i.e. provided by a credit card or maybe take the risk and don’t have fully comprehensive at all.

So if you want an insurance policy that allows you to walk away without any further paperwork then buy the insurance sold by the car rental company. There will be various add-ons to cover everything you want to be covered for (and are prepared to pay for).

Ramblin' on: thank you for the detailed reply. The inclusion of "liability" coverage in the rentals is a great relief, as my US policy would not cover that in the UK, nor would credit card coverage.

I am now trying to sort through the details of policies offered by third parties vs my credit card coverage. A great cure for insomnia!