insurance for a rental car

Have you read the reviews of Green Motion?

In asking about car rental in "Europe" you're asking about a whole continent. Practices vary.

In addition to the above about reading reviews, did you read the terms.and conditions? It spells it all out.

Green Motion includes insurance EXCEPT for bookings from the US. As a US customer, you can buy it at the counter:

"Both CDW and TP will be available to purchase at the rental counter. Clients will sign to agree unlimited liability."

As I understand it, if you only take the Booking.com policy, you pay for any damage up front and then claim back from the insurer.

"customers are required to pay Green Motion and will be able to claim for reimbursement of their costs through the policy purchased from the third party."

Car rental companies will offer the insurance you want - or you can get your own.

But of all the car rental companies, Green Motion receive very poor reviews.

We’ve only rented a car overseas once, in Ireland, with Hertz. We purchased full coverage (selected at the time of booking online). If anything happened we wanted to walk away without dealing with insurance back-and-forth and follow-ups, and we were willing to pay a little extra for this luxury. In the U.S. we rely on our own insurance coverage + the secondary coverage on our credit card.

Personally, I would feel more comfortable booking and purchasing insurance coverage directly from the rental company, rather than using a third party (although many here recommend Auto Europe).

FWIW, we are looking at a car rental for an upcoming trip and encountered Green Motion (comparatively low prices caught our eye). Never hearing of it before, we checked reviews and decided to steer clear of it after reading a few of the reviews. Your experience may vary, of course.

Just because the policy was recommended by Booking.com, what that really means is, Booking.com is making money off of it - not that it’s a good policy. You should have received the policy, and all the answers to all your questions are in the policy,. If you didn’t, that’s another red flag.

I really would suggest you go look at someplace like auto Europe and book through them for a more reputable company than this one you seem to have found.

And then you need to look at your own insurance and your credit card.

I have a credit card that has primary insurance and I’ve actually had to use it in Europe. I called them and that was the end of my input they took over and handeled everything. . Check your credit cards and see what you’ve got. I would not recommend putting yourself in a position where you are buying whatever the green motion people are peddling that day for an extraordinary amount of money. That’s why I recommend using somebody like Auto Europe . It’s all clearly stated upfront as opposed to this when you get there, they can charge you whatever they want concept.

Mike L, I don't know anything about Green Motion, but I would trust the people above who are talking about bad reviews.

Have you considered booking your car through Auto Europe? I've used it over the past three decades and have never had a problem with Auto Europe. It's trustworthy and they give you all the details up front. How it works is you plug in the information about your rental car; dates, times of pick up, places and so on, and it will give you a list of companies that will provide cars for you. You can pick the one that you like, but Auto Europe retains roll, and if you have any problems, you can always call them immediately.

I typically avoid booking thru third parties, like booking.com, with a passion. I especially wouldn't book car rental thru booking.com. I like to book directly from the company/person offering the service. I do make an exception for car rental outside of the U.S. I do look first for highly respected local car rental companies. I like Arnold Clark in England, I booked thru local companies in Australia and Maui, Hawaii. When I can't find a local company with stellar reviews, I do turn to Autoeurope. I've booked with them at least 15 times. They are great to deal with. I especially like that they have a U.S. based 800 number.

Recently, when I found Autoeurope quotes a bit high for my liking, I turned to Delta travel. (I typically fly Delta and have a Delta branded credit card. The rental car quote really surprised me because I find Delta travel hotels typically way over priced. Furthermore, I was very surprised to see their charge for the add on insurance at about $11/day. That's quite low. While I've never purchased extra car rental insurance when I travel, I have booked cars thru Delta travel and have been happy.

What I do typically do for the add on insurance is rely on the insurance that I can get when I use a credit card. That would be thru my AMEX card (do not include Ireland, Australia or New Zealand and other countries) or my Chase card. I have never heard a negative experience about coverage for accidents and using the credit card insurance.

Thanks for your input. I will continue doing research. Booking.com worked ok for hotels in past trips. The 4 times I rented a car in the USA, I searched on booking.com and ended up with Budget, Enterprise, or Alamo. Each experience was ok. The worst experience, which still worked out ok, was with Enterprise: I had reserved a certain small car model or best available. They gave me a big Dodge Ram pickup truck. That was all they had. The price stayed the same.

It seems like I can safely decline the Excess Reimbursement Policy Booking offers if I still reserve with booking, and then take whatever the rental employee offers at the last minute, although I don't making assumptions if the assumption came from me instead of from somebody else or some site that sounds true enough.

Edit: Are you sure it isn't the case that people with bad experiences are more likely to leave bad reviews while people with good or neutral experiences often don't leave any reviews?

Edit: On autoeurope, only 3 companies are listed: Green motion, Top rent-a-car, and Thrifty. Booking has small cars from addcar, Green Motion, and Toprent, but also Alamo and for a higher cost, Enterprise.

When you use a third party insurance--Booking.com or American Express (what I use) or a credit card, you are responsible for the cost of the repair of the car or the value if stolen. You then put in a claim with that third party for remibursement.

When you take out insurance with the rental car company directly, usually, you are covered and don't have to worry about much.

I always book rent a cars directly with the car company. Sometimes, the cheapest company is cheapest for a reason. You really need to read the fine print.

Alamo has a branch at Riga Airport in Latvia. They will charge $422.88 US dollars for 2-1/2 days of car rental if I select all the optional insurance except for roadside assistance. The fine print specifies that roadside assistance doesn't cover flat tires, just mechanical engine failure. Or do I need it in case of carjacking? Are you sure this isn't a rip-off? The Green Motion branch in Riga has both good and bad reviews. Alamo in Riga only has 9 reviews on google maps. Green Motion doesn't give so many pieces of insurance you can add or skip but the given price for a similar car from Green Motion is only approximately 323.60 US dollars.

I'm sure they assume you can change your own flat tyres - but on vehicle collection, it's worth checking the spare, jack, etc are on board

if you choose Green Motion you need to remember you have been warned - they have, and have had for many years genuine horror stories from many people. They are cheaper to entice you in.