Please sign in to post.

Post trip review on Amex CDW rental car insurance

Spoiler alert, it works. Details below.

I started using Amex CDW at least a few years ago. It was available on the old Costco Amex cards, now available on several versions of Amex cards (for me now Amex everyday cash card). There are some variations depending on your state of residence (some states don't let Amex offer it because it's considered an insurance product). Amex charges a one-time charge when you rent your car, roughly $25 for me. It covers up to a 40 day rental for a charge that's not much different than paying only one day with the rental company - great deal.

Over the last handful of rentals, both in Europe and domestically, the only issue I had was with Autoeurope. Amex didn't pick the charge up automatically. I had to call them and have them manually add the premium charge to ensure I was covered.

In June, I had my first accident. It was pretty minor but, as you can expect, still resulted in about $3,000 damage. I just got word yesterday that Amex paid the claim. They didn't pay an administrative fee of $138. I expect another bill from the rental company for that, which is relatively minor - maybe they'll accept the payment they received and call it good?

I did have a couple issues with Amex. First, they want you to call as soon as possible. It would have been much more convenient to let me report the crash by either email or even online chat, but they don't give me that option. When I did call, they told me I could file the claim online, something that would have been more helpful if I had known it earlier.

The online claim worked reasonably well. As expected, they wanted details of the accident. Again it would have been good to know what they wanted earlier. I normally photograph the car pretty thoroughly to prove I did no damage. In this case, I dropped it off and didn't take photos, figuring I didn't need to prove I didn't damage it. Like a bonehead, I didn't think that the insurance would want to see proof of damage. Fortunately, they accepted an internet image of the car model. I detailed, on the photo, the damage to the car I'd noted. I had all the other information they needed.

The only other issue: I sent all the information, in attachments, in a reply to the person who said they were on the claim. Two weeks later I got another email saying they still needed the information. I went back to the online claim and put in electronic copies of what they needed. I was a little surprised my reply with attachments didn't work. After I put all the attachments in, the next thing was notice that they had paid the claim.

Last tidbit. This was in France. I hit a big truck that suddenly stopped halfway into a roundabout. I don't think he realized I hit him, it wasn't much of a crash. I followed expecting him to pull over but he never did. No one ever asked me for my IDP, the rental company, the insurance company, police weren't involved (but I had it if they did).

Posted by
5687 posts

I'm glad Amex Assurance paid your claim. In 2015, when I had an issue in Croatia with my rental car, I did exactly what they told me to do, provided all of the information they asked of me (filed the claim on line), and they still never paid the claim, after I called them over and over again. Their reason: the rental car company in Croatia never responded to them. I got the idea that Amex Assurance's effort to "contact" them consisted of simply snail mailing them a request for information. I got the car company to email me back - but I guess that's more effort than Amex Assurance would take.

Out of curiosity, did you accept responsibility for the damages up front when you returned the car (or at the time)? I did - they charged me the (approximately) 800 euro deposit that originally. Paying it (signing responsibility for it) was probably my big mistake. A few months later they refunded about 200 euros of it, after the final repairs I guess. The rest was mine to pay - Amex Assurance never put much more effort into trying to contact the company, it seems. Instead of signing for responsibility for the damages, I should have simply denied any damages, let them charge the 800 euros, and then I could have disputed the charge. Amex would have investigated, and then they would have had to produce repair invoices that I could have used for the claim - something the car company had no incentive to do at that point.

I doubt I'll ever rely on credit card insurance in the future, though if I ever do, it won't be with Amex Assurance. It was quite an unpleasant experience dealing with them.

Posted by
12172 posts

I probably did accept responsibility. Which didn't surprise me because I had the accident. If insurance didn't pay, I figured I'd be on the hook. The rental car company sent me a payment demand separately from the forms I came home with. That was one of the pieces Amex wanted to support the claim.

The rental car company seemed pretty efficient on sending exactly what Amex wanted (before they asked for it), some of the needed forms were attached to my rental return, the rest they mailed shortly afterward.

The cost was about what I would have guessed. I'm just glad I didn't end up paying it.

The only thing I really worried about was they would decline because I didn't have photos. I always worry when I don't have exactly what an insurance company wants in exactly the form they want it.

Posted by
8094 posts

We all learn lessons, some the hard way. Before my trip to Ireland earlier this year, I took time to read my personal automobile policy and the terms and conditions on my credit card. So much money is wasted on CDW insurance premiums.
I find that my personal insurance policy pays for damage on car rentals in North America--but not overseas. Any CDW insurance that I would purchase in North America would be secondary of my personal insurance and essentially a waste of money.
My credit card benefit does pay for car rental damages in much of Europe if the rental is charged to my card--excluding Ireland, Italy and a few other places I've never been. Any CDW coverage purchased from the rental car company would also be secondary to the credit card coverage, and may be a waste of money in most situations.
Collision and comprehensive insurance paid to the rental car companies is a big profit department. Most rental car companies don't even have collision/comprehensive/theft insurance coverage and they pay damages out of the CDW kitty internally. (They do pay for liability coverage, however.)
I have found mandatory CDW insurance in Italy to be very fairly priced, which tells me the government has placed limitations on premiums. I didn't find Ireland to have reasonable CDW charges, however.
Everyone needs to read their policies and their credit card terms and conditions as every company treats rental car insurance differently. I still prefer to rent cars from company owned rental stores in Europe--and not every big name rental company is company owned. I've heard a number of complaints on European car rental companies that are franchisees and not nearly as well run as the same brand in the United States.

Posted by
2916 posts

I was a little surprised my reply with attachments didn't work.

It probably did. They probably lost it.

Posted by
12172 posts

The attachments I sent to the person administering the claim never made it to the claim. When I put them in myself, however, it worked. Maybe there's a lesson here that doing your own claims online is better than trying to get someone else to care about your claim?

Posted by
5687 posts

I did my claim entirely online. I called Amex Assurance in Croatia before I even returned the car, after the damage occurred, to ask them how to proceed, and I followed their instructions. They said I should just sign everything when returning the car, then file a claim whenever I wanted to. I filed the claim the day after I got home from Croatia, a day after I returned the car. I then had to call them repeatedly to check on the claim and be told they had all the information they needed from me - they just hadn't had a response to the snail mail letter they'd mailed to the car company - sorry! That's as far as we got.