Rental Car insurance France/Belgium

I ought to have stated that my credit card carries the insurance when overseas.

I have excellent car insurance in the US.

Take out your policy and read the "where you are covered" section. Typically you are covered in the US, its Territories, and Canada.

Anywhere else , it is useless.

As always, check your policy. Chances are your credit card coverage covers you for rentals paid with the card. Ours does, for both liability and CDW.

We checked and our US insurance does nothing in a foreign country. Our credit card does provide some coverage but you have to refuse the basic CDW for that to apply. Note that some credit cards do not cover things like windshields, tires, undercarriage, loss of use and some car rental companies have various levels of coverage that add that in with various levels of deductible - really depends on how much peace of mind you want. We used to just use the credit card as our coverage but of late have instead added on the car rental coverage that covers those more likely occurrences (tire, windshield, deductibles, loss of use) just to alleviate stress of having to cover a deductible or the cost of the car while waiting for the credit card to do its thing.

If you’re comfortable with the CDW that comes with your CC, fine. You could always get CDW through a 3rd party provider like Allianz. Insurance through the rental company is the most expensive option, but you can get zero deductible insurance if you want. To get the extra coverage or zero deductible you must get CDW through the rental company.