Car Rental insurance waiver

@Lisa do you mean my personal car insurance company here? I did not know that affects car rentals abroad?

When looking at my CC benefits the below is stated....

Did you keep on going until you found "Exclusions" ?

Make sure Ireland is not listed as an excluded country. Many cards exclude Ireland ( and Italy among others) from coverage.

@Joe32f no country exclusions are shown in the benefits guide.

Get a letter from your credit card stating that Ireland will be covered. The car rental company may want to see a recently dated letter specifically calling out the coverage for Ireland (Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland if you are traveling to both). Your word may not be enough.

Also, make sure you have enough available credit on your credit card to accommodate a potentially large hold in case of an accident. Check ahead of time to see what that amount will be, it varies by the rental agency.

Gail is spot on! Also, if you are 75 or older, you need letters from your insurance company stating you have been five years accident free, and a letter from your doctor less than 30 days old stating you are able to drive

@gail unfortunately reading my Geico policy it only states domestic car rentals not international.

Sorry, I meant from your credit card company and updated my note. We had jumped through these hoops prior to the trip being canceled due to covid closing the borders.

@Gail, thank you, thats very helpful. I will call Chase CC benefits. Hopefully they put things in writing !! I just was not sure if this is the same coverage we would be purchasing from the rental companies and pay $$$ when its not needed. But also want to be fully insured.

Call Chase, they will connect you to their insurance partners. Ask them to send you a note via email proving coverage, they’ll do it within minutes, it’s a routine request, it’s easy. Print that out and bring it with you. Pay for the rental with that card(!). At the rental counter, decline all OPTIONAL insurance offered. That’s it. Take lots of pictures of the car at pickup and note every scratch. Drive carefully (the first few minutes will be the most terrifying). Be sure your left seat passenger is FULLY supportive of all the driver’s needs 100% of the time, they’re the copilot. The copilot job is serious (deadly serious). No distractions in the car from passengers, the driver’s concentration and needs are top priority and driver’s orders are the law (like a ships captain or an airline pilot). Don’t drink and drive, period. Enjoy Ireland.

Thank you @David excellent advice and I will contact Chase and agree on the driving. We did rent a car 39 years ago there for our honeymoon but who would remember! And of course things have changed -:)

One last thing: Be sure you let the agency know you are planning to take the car into another country (the United Kingdom) when you set up the rental (though of course you will be bringing it back to Ireland to return it).

I've used my Chase Sapphire Preferred card for car rentals in dozens of countries for decades. Their car insurance benefit has saved me many thousands of dollars. This year that card will save me a bunch of Japanese Yen, Colombian Pesos, and Euros (some challenging driving is ahead...). It's a great deal. Have fun.

eeccrodgers - Thanks for asking this question as we are also renting a car in Ireland mid May and were planning to use our CSP card. When are you going? Let us know how getting the email letter from Chase goes and how it goes with the rental car company. Thanks!

Regarding getting the letter from your Chase insurance affiliate company, is your Chase a VISA card? For our Ireland trip 9 months ago, I learned that VISA cards, in general, now exclude rental car insurance specifically for Ireland. Our particular Chase VISA did cover rental cars in Ireland, which I was told is now very rare, but I had to call to confirm that, and to request a letter to that effect. They wouldn’t e-mail or FAX the letter, only mail it. Call the toll-free number on the back of your credit card, and they will transfer (or refer) you to the insurance provider, which is a different company than Chase.

The Dollar rent-a-car agent at the pick-up desk in Cork did need to see the letter, and he made a photocopy for his records. Without the letter, he would’ve required us to pay for their coverage.

Thanks @David ! Also what rental agency did you use? I have a corp Hertz acct but their prices look high.

I will let everyone know how it goes when I call Chase tomorrow or Friday.

Assuming Chase is similar to Citi for premium cards, they have a special phone number to call to get an immediate email explaining your having coverage. Hertz/Dollar requires a hardcopy of the email dated less than 30 days old. If you tell them you are headed to Northern Ireland, they will charge you a 30€ "recovery fee" to cover their costs to tow your car back to Ireland. By last May, Hertz had added a new mandatory 7€/day "alternate waiver fee" (presumable to try to stop people from avoiding their onerous insurance rates). I had quite a debate about the fact that no such fee was listed on my quote, but it's existence is printed on the mat atop the service counter, so the agent wasn't being creative. Since I felt I had the best rate available as I had booked almost a year in advance, I swallowed my anger and paid the fee. Someone needs to create a "car-share" app for Ireland!

@Joe32f no country exclusions are shown in the benefits guide.

In the benefits guide, on page 3, under the heading "How do you use the Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver" the last paragraph indicates that the benefit is available "in most foreign countries" and that you should call to verify what countries (it can change, Ukraine for example was probably taken off the "covered" list).

For Ireland, since many cards do exclude them, I would get a letter verifying coverage, the rental counter may ask for proof.

Tons of talk ongoing about this issue. Rental car coverage. With replies that state people have been doing it for years, relying on their CC coverage. Now, let me ask this. Has anyone ever had an accident or damage that required payment and can tell us what happened? Did the car company charge you directly? Had they put a $1500 hold on your CC when the car was rented and was that the maximum you paid at the time for damage? What exactly are the practicalities of what they do verses what you did?
Did they seek payment and you just referred it to the CC company or was it that you paid, and then had to submit for reimbursement?
If we don’t get some practical knowledge then these CC coverages and even coverage other than that are only so many words.

On the flip side. If you buy coverage at the point that you rent the car online, you might want to note that that is probably through a third party. I have done this and when I got to the counter to get my car, they tried to sell me coverage. They claimed to know nothing about what I had purchased as coverage.

As an aside, in 2016 I used my card coverage and had a minor incident (I scraped the left side door on a protruding gate and had a flat tire as well. We just carried on with the spare tire and a scratch on the door(s). When I returned the car, the agent in the lot saw my agreement and practically licked his lips. He proceeded to check a bunch of boxes, eventually totaling $4500, which (of course) was charged to my card. When I got back to the States, a quick call to Citi and in about 30 days, the charge was reversed and the actual rental fee was lowered to the bare minimum, removing the extra driver charge.

In other words, except for the risk of a short term charge to your card for an incident, there's absolutely no reason to use the car company's CDW if your card offers coverage.

I believe that the person who made the reservation needs to be the person collecting the car and presenting the credit card.

Thank you all for these comments. Certainly seems a lot more complicated than one would think and I’m sure it’s all about the rental car company to make money. I certainly have a lot of questions to ask Chase !!

On the off chance that you are picking up your car on the weekend, and there is no one available to help you with this detail...make sure you have a letter stating the exact dollar amount of coverage you have. I picked up my car on a Sunday and the department that could issue that letter was closed. All my planning went down the drain. No one cares, they need it in writing how much coverage you have.

Oh wow ! Luckily it will be on a week day. Pick up and drop off.

Well that's interesting.

I've rented cars using the coverage provided by Chase many dozens of times, in many countries (including in Ireland) and from many car rental agencies. I've never had anyone ask me anything about the amount of coverage that's provided by my insurance (or any other details, frankly - they don't care, it's not their problem if you total one of their cars, that would be your problem if you do - they have your credit card and they'll put a nice big hold on it).

All I've ever had to say to them when insurance comes up was: Thank you very much, but I want to decline all optional coverage offered. That was it, no drama, no demands for proof, no inquiry about details or numbers.

I always have a letter provided by Chase/their insurance partners with me to prove I had coverage (which they've always been happy to provide promptly – even when I asked for a copy translated in to Spanish or Italian). I think I only had to get that piece of paper out and show it maybe once in 20 years of using this benefit, when there was a bit of an attempt at a "hard sell" for supplemental insurance, and there was no real pushback.

I always request that note from Chase before I depart, as I'm assembling all my paperwork (and I have definitely called to ask for it in the middle of the night - they seem to be available 24/7 IME, and they typically respond with the requested note via email within a few minutes...hard to beat that for service).

No guarantees, YMMV, but I would not worry about this much. Get the paperwork a day or two before you leave. The insurance benefit is a primary selling point for this card, it's a VERY common thing, they deal with it all the time.

@David thank you!!

Part of my pre-travel steps are 1) call for coverage letter within 30 days of trip, 2) activate EU sim card 30 days from END of trip, to learn my assigned number, 3) make airline menu choices, and 4) seat assignments. (The last two are airline dependent).

Ireland car renting can be "harder" than other countries. The industry has incentivized their counter agents to be very pushy for CDW, tire protection, glass dings, GPS (even though it's built-in in most cars), and size upgrades. Last May I rented in Edinburgh, and was told they had no small cars left and did I want to upgrade. I said "no" and they gave me the upgrade anyway (for free), and it included GPS, which I also wouldn't bite on. As I mentioned earlier, there was a 7E /day charge to allow the CDW.

@liken56 to obtain the letter you can go online to https://www.eclaimsline.com/letter-of-eligibility = you'll put in your CC #
it will verify you are eligible - which the Chase Sapphire card is. and you can get the letter. Ireland and N. Ireland are NOT excluded per the rep I talked to and the letter--

This is in the first paragraph of the letter.
This includes the previously
excluded countries of the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Israel and Jamaica.
Coverage is not available where it is prohibited by law or by individual merchants, or is in
violation of the territory terms of the rental agreement.

@David so for the rentals you did not get any other coverage? And If there were to be an accident the rental car company assumes the personal lability to the drivers??

eeccrogers - Thanks so much for giving me the link on how to contact Chase regarding car rental insurance! i appreciate it!