Help! I'm so confused! What is everyone's opinion on what types of insurance i should get? I'll be renting a car for 2 weeks in Italy and there are so many different insurances...Collision, Theft, Personal injury..i'm just completely confused on what is necessary, what is unnecessary. Is there any particular rental company that would have an all inclusive (for the most part) insurance coverage with their basic car rental? Europcar? etc? Thanks everyone..
Posted by
Tresana, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
23290 posts
Get it all. You may need it.
Posted by
US Pacific Northwest
10344 posts
This is Rick's advice on that http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/carrental_cdw.htm, but I suggest you disregard The Master's casual use of the term "racket", it is not intended (I assume) to imply you don't need CDW coverage.Also see these articles by Rick on more general topics of car rental http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/carrental_2005.htmAnd note carefully that some credit cards exclude CDW coverage in Italy, because of insurance company opinions that there is a higher risk of damaging the car driving in Italy.
Posted by
Everett, WA
1288 posts
We got a CSA travel insurance policy that included car rental insurance...zero deductible up to $50,000. We only had to insure our trip for $2000 since we did not have much invested ahead of time (just airline tickets and a few hotels we couldn't cancel.) We did not want to use credit card coverage (the rules and exclusions were many and hard to understand). The place where we rented was regular CDW (expensive and with a $1500 deductible) and Super-which was super expensive. So we went with CSA. We did have to file at $3200 claim and they paid it promptly. We had originally thought we would go with the regular CDW which would have been $1500 out of our pocket. Whatever insurance you get, be sure you familiarize yourself with what you should do if you are in an accident. There are some paperwork requirements that you can't mess up on. (accident report, car rental agreement, police report, etc.)