Blue Car auto rental insurance confusion

I found that the Blue Car rental prices were pretty good.

I covered this a few months ago

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/iceland/decoding-the-wild-west-of-iceland-car-rental-insurance

I plan to supplement the basic insurance with credit card insurance so not worried about their insurance language, but I seem to recall that the sand and ash is not in the included coverage. There are just a few patches of ground where this damage sometimes occurs, just don't drive them in high wind: middle of the south shore of island between VIk and Hof and then between Myvatn and Husavik on 87.

Although it was many years ago when I used credit card insurance for a rented automobile, I was told that if I accepted insurance from the rental company, I voided the insurance from my credit card. I haven’t checked into that yet but you might want to do that before you go.

I did check again yesterday and confirmed that if the coverage is included in the basic price and can’t be waived then the credit card insurance is in effect. Over the years I have called Chase twice and AMEX once on this specific issue and the answer is the same.

accepted insurance from the rental company

‘Accepted’ is not the correct term. It would say something like ‘must waive’ extra insurance or ‘must not pay for additional’ insurance.

We rented from Blue Car in 2019 (only car we ever rented). We did not have to buy any insurance from them when we showed them the coverage letter from the credit card that we were using. They were great in clarifying back and forth via email what we needed to get. As we were not going into any of the tougher areas (we were only using it to get from Reykjavik to daughter-in-law's father's guest house in Stykkisholmer and then back, and otherwise riding with her) we did not bother with the additional sand and ash coverage. I recall Blue Car being easy to work with. We picked up in town, and no issue for dropping off at Keflavik.

Just a comment in general about car rental in Iceland if it’s of any value. When we picked up our Avis car on 6/22/2021, we inspected it “with a fine tooth comb” so to speak. Glad we did. When we turned it in on July 1, 2021, I couldn’t believe the thoroughness of the inspection. Opened every door, hood, trunk, inspected every seam between fender and door, etc., drove the car a short distance, inspected the undercarriage. You name it, it was checked. I’ve never seen anything like it in 50 years of renting cars on trips.

I had the opposite experience. I drove a rental car for 2 weeks: ring road, Arctic Way, Westfjords. There was some paint damage that I was not asked to cover (at least not yet, it has been a month).

We just used Blue Car Rental for our Ring Road trip the last two weeks. We picked it up in Reykjavik and returned it at the airport. Very easy on both ends. We opted for the full insurance and the wifi unit. The wifi was gold! A handful of our lodgings, the wifi was not working or was intermittent, so we used this unit and it worked perfectly. Well worth the money! When we returned the car, we dropped the kids and luggage at the airport and then drove over to the return the vehicle and then walked back to the terminal. It is maybe a 5 minute walk if that, and you can see Blue from the terminal. The return process was very quick as we had no damages, but we did take photos just to be sure.

Adding that I also had an excellent experience with Blue Car. Walked from our downtown Reykjavik hotel to the city rental facility near the wharf. The person there could not have been more helpful. They gave us a nice free upgrade to a Kia Xceed which was very comfortable for two. There was a huge and well-priced Cronan just a block away so we loaded up on groceries.

Then had an excellent return at Keflavik Airport as well, a simple US-style walk around and that was it. I did not buy additional insurance, and there was no damage anyway. I think the sand/ash insurance is a bit of a scam, since a driver can avoid driving in the suspect areas in high wind if they follow the weather forecast.

Cost was $703 for 8 days, quite reasonable, and the fuel for driving around the island came in at $188 which was also reasonable.

My only complaint was with the Kia: Sometimes in normal driving I turn off the car before putting it in park. That caused this vehicle to lock the doors so we couldn't get out. I had to restart the car to open the doors.

We rented from Blue from 18-31 august, and it was great. It was already so expensive, we decided to decline the sand and ash coverage. Glad we did. Even though we went though “those areas”, we didn’t have problems. We had a small Toyota 6 speed, and it was sufficient for our nearly 2 weeks around the ring road. We did have a crazy day of record breaking hot weather (38 degrees Celsius) driving across the volcanic wastelands east of Myvatn, so lack of AC was noted. We stripped down to our skivvies and were find. A rare thing, weather that hot in Iceland.

When we returned the car, they looked it over quite thoroughly, and let us know it was was “perfect”, so we left happy that all was good.

Note that we got gas at OB, where we took advantage of free self car washing facilities. Good to bring the car back clean!