My wife and I travel to the UK twice a year and rent a car for 3-5 weeks. We have stopped purchasing insurance through booking sites as several times we have arrived at a car hire counter only to find we that we must purchase additional coverage from them for CDW, excess liability, or something else. It's confusing, there is often a line, and we end up buying the daily coverage which adds a lot of cost. Even our travel credit card coverage is apparently no good there. Are there any quality third-party insurance providers that we can obtain an annual or trip policy that provides full coverage needed for rentals that is reasonably affordable? We'll buy and keep a car there eventually but it's not practical at this time. Thank you.
PS.
Take photos and check the tires before accepting a rental. We used a cheaper car rental company when I could not arrange a car through our preferred company. We had to purchase a new tire our last trip at about 200 miles after a rear tire delaminated at high speed on the motorway. Either the car company or a prior user had apparently replaced a factory tire with a used one that was not rated for the car, had almost no tread, and potentially dangerous. Yet, the delivery ticket I initialed showed more than minimum tread depth required for UK roads. Even though I had taken a few photos, we were tired, in a heavy rain at the lot, and, I neglected to get down and have a look at the tires.