CDW insurance for car rental - expensive

Try this: http://www.travelguard.com/travelinsurance/

Search and you will find a product for CDW coverage.

We have used this on our last two trips to Europe. The cost is about $10US a day.

Karen, check with Andrew Bestor at gemut.com. I would give him a call. My Amex card covered my cdw and theft. I asked the him about the liability and was told the liability is included w/all rentals in Europe by law. You are protected for damage to people or property outside your vehicle. $0 deductible. I would call to make sure that is still the case and if so check with your credit card company to see if your are covered on the CDW and theft. If not it may pay to get a credit card that will cover that.

Karen, i called American Express and mine covered CDW in Europe. I also added extra AMEX coverage for a flat fee of $19 which covers my entire rental experience.

If you waive the car rental company's CDW insurance in favor of CDW coverage using a credit card, don't rent from National-Citer. Just don't. If you must, ask me how I know...

It's too bad you can't squeeze in a couple more days. At 17 days you can lease rather than rent. It's significantly cheaper and CDW is included in the price. When I leased it was about half of the rental price (not including the savings for free CDW).

Many credit cards provide this coverage if you purchase the rental using that card. Some people like to buy the coverage anyway for "peace of mind" and avoidance of paperwork hassles or whatever. For me, "peace of mind" is not paying for something when I already have it, so I rely on my card's coverage whenever possible.

However, there ARE exceptions to this coverage. For instance, my VISA card does not provide coverage in Ireland or Israel (and maybe one other - Portugal?). So it's good to call your credit card company and find out what coverage they provide.

This is all such great information. By reading all your replies I was able to determine that third party liability is covered in Europe by law (confirmed by Alamo, the rental company) and that my Visa Gold card will cover everything else including theft. So I feel good to go. Thank you all so much for your helpful information. By your combined efforts you`ve saved me $600. :)

One more thing, a lesson I will remember for next time. Lease for 17 days, don`t rent for 15!!!

K.

I will never again trust credit card insurance to pay for damage to a rental car. I verified everything before I left, followed the rules laid out by the credit card company, and when I had a little accident (less than $500 damage) they refused to pay. The rental company even went to bat for me against the credit card, but I ended up paying the bill.