Ireland - rental car insurance

I'd double check if I were you. Visa and Mastercard, to my knowledge, will NOT cover your collision damage waiver in Ireland. Call to confirm, but you can see a list of the conditions here. See "Where are you covered" at the lower left.

Don't trust Mastercard for car insurance! I was assured by them repeatedly before a trip that I was covered, so I declined the insurance at the rental desk (as I was instructed to do). I had a small accident (damage less than $500) and Mastercard refused to pay. Ireland is always an issue and the Mastercard insurance people will do whatever they can to get out of paying a claim. Even the car rental place went to bat for me, with no success. It's worth the cost to me now to take the super CDW in Ireland so I don't have to worry about anything.

Nancy....did they refuse to pay because the accident was in Ireland...or for some other reason?

Alan, If someone at your CC Co. said you would be covered, PLEASE call again and ask to speak to a supervisor. It seems the Irish are a bit too relaxed in their views of carrying insurance. Therefore the credit card agency does not want to pick up the tab. I was at the lecture last Saturday at ETBD "Getting the Most from your travel agent" and this was one of the subjects that came up. There are several countries in which your CC co. will not cover you. Several years ago they did and paid for the damage done what a rock wall jumped up and hit us. Nancy is right about the CC's trying to avoid paying. Once they tried to tell us they would only cover us for up to 15 days which proved to be untrue. This was England.

Norm, Ireland wasn't the issue in my case. Mastercard did cover Ireland at that time. The reason they declined the claim was that they said, after the fact, that my credit limit wasn't high enough to qualify for the insurance. I had called, though, several times ahead of my trip and was told that yes, I was covered. My credit limit never changed and I had no balance on my card. The rental place said that they had never heard of that before (neither had I). Nothing in the documentation said that there were credit limit requirements. Bottom line was, Mastercard lied to me about being covered.
And because I had declined the coverage at the rental counter I got stuck with the bill.

We had a world mastercard, bronze, AAadvantage from Citi. We declined CDW and then we had a fender bender last August, and MC did reimburse us the $1,800.00 amount. However, it took lots of paperwork, emails, and phone calls and 6 months to get it done. They never got me the fleet utilization records, so we didn't get paid for the $118.00 loss of use fee. I don't recall what our credit limit at the time was, but it was a new account for us, acquired just for the purpose of rental car insurance. We use our VISA exclusively, otherwise, so as to get points for free airline tickets. We could get miles with the citi card too, but it would HAVE to be with American Airlines, instead of being able to choose which airline to use our VISA points for. The reason I took the AAdvantage card was because it had no annual fee. Would I use it again? I don't know, probably a 50/50 chance I wouldn't. Don't know if it was worth all the hassle to save about 300 dollars CDW on the car rental. Interest on the 5 months of $1800 balance on my credit card, and long distance calls etc for the priviledge of using the world card...I don't know if it was worth it. It would have been, if we wouldn't have had the accident, so I guess it depends on how lucky you fee. Dan

One thing to point out about third party insurance: in case of a claim, you will have to pay the costs upfront and wait to reimbursed by the third party company.

I have a World Mastercard, too, but after several calls, no one could tell me exactly what my coverage included. I decided I'd rather go with the definite coverage that I'd have to pay for then the maybe coverage that was free.

Just FYI, you'll get a CDW quote with your rental, there's a deductible with that, usually around 1100-1500 euro. To cover that, you'll either need to go with the "Super CDW" with the rental company, which is costly, or go with a 3rd party to cover the deductible. We went with dailyexcess.com, cost us about a third of what the Super CDW would have cost. We did have to file a claim, took about 6 weeks to get the money. Something else to think of, though, is if your credit card company charges foreign transaction fees. Ours does, never thought of it much as we pay cash as we go, but the fees on the 1100 deductible almost ate up all of the money we saved by going through a 3rd party.

Additionally what might look to you like a minor repair costs a very lot more to have it done than in the US. For a dented front fender and headlight replacement my card was charged $1800.00.

We just got back from Ireland. Rented from Budget. Our United Visa Card stated that it did not cover Ireland. So it cost us 30 Euro a day for the Ins. But when I had reserved the car and said yes to the insurance it was 24 Euro, but when we picked the car up they informed us that we would still have a 1500.00 Euro deductable, so we took the 30 euro that covered everything. Of corse nothing happened. But the driving was so crazy, that I was happy everyday that we spent the money on that insurance.

Thanks to all of you for your advice, which is giving me real food for thought. I wonder if any of you could also share your thought on my original question: Besides CDW, did anyone purchase additional coverage for property damage or personal injury? And if so, what's a smart way to do it? Thanks again.

Ditto what Laurel said. Surprisingly, our scratch down the side of the car cost almost exactly 1100 euro, which was how much our deductible was.

Liability coverage is mandatory in Ireland and is included in all rentals.

I just got back from a driving trip through Ireland...take out all the insurance you can get. I opted for the extra that required no deductible. Let me tell you it is nerve wracking driving on the "wrong" side of the road. I came out one morning to find a large scratch on the front fender that I did not put there! It gave me great peace of mind knowing that should anything happen I was totally covered, it was worth the extra money!

Nice to see a thread that gives a more balanced picture, to newbies writing in here asking about driving in Ireland/the UK, than the glib "no problem, go for it" type of reply that we too often see here.

Refreshing to see folks who don't mind admitting that, actually, they found driving on the wrong side a bit of a challenge, and that there have been a number of "scrapes."

Given the small number of folks reporting in here on this site, it gives some idea of the total amount of fender bender damage incurred by Yanks on the Irish roads.

Apparently, there's a reason why credit card coverage often excludes driving in Ireland.