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I’m looking to book a rental car via Avis in summer, they have an included standard insurance with a lovely €2800 excess. Given they want to charge about half my annual car insurance cost to waive the excess, I looked in to the Amex Platinum benefits and what they cover. In the Travel Insurance policy there is this line:
> Cover applies only when rental agency allows refusal of their insurance.
Given I don’t seem to have the option of declining their standard included insurance I assume this means that I either need to pay the waiver fee, use standalone waiver insurance, or use a different rental company? Does anyone have any experience of this?
Amex does a bad job of explaining this. I will do a better job.
Every country has different laws about what level of insurance must be legally provided when you rent a car. The USA is one of very few which allows you to get away with no insurance at all if you so choose.
Insurance usually carries no VAT or a low level of VAT.
It is therefore attractive to rental companies to ‘charge’ you separately for the legally required level of insurance, since they pay no or little VAT on that, instead of including it in the base rental fee.
Your original quote may therefore look like:
Rental £45
Insurance £5
Total £50You cannot ask for this insurance to be removed because it is the legally required minimum in the country you are in.
What you CAN refuse is everything that the rental company tries to sell you on top.
(Or, put more simply, you cannot reduce the headline price you agree to pay online with Plat because the insurance included in that quote is mandatory. You can refuse everything else.)
Thank you for the explainer Rob. So to clarify with a concrete example and my understanding: I’m travelling to France, I book a car with Avis on my Platinum Amex (taking advantage of the status it gives), I decline the upsell on insurance (and so get the “standard” included insurance with Avis — €2800 excess). If there is damage / theft on the vehicle I can claim the excess on the Amex Plat travel insurance and not pay a penny further. Is that correct?
Points to clarify:
1. There is no requirement to pay on your Platinum card.
2. Paying with the Platinum card does not automatically give you Avis status. You need to enrol: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/benefits/travel/cars/the-platinum-card/avis-presidents-club/ although if you already have an Avis account you will probably need to contact Avis so they can upgrade you.
3. If you have an accident, Avis will charge the card you provided as security, and you reclaim in full from Amex.Much appreciated EwanG — I’ve got the status updated, surprisingly worked without having to contact Avis to upgrade the account!
I use Avis in the US and created a new account when I opened my Platinum Account. When I book using the app (or online) directly with Avis, as a President’s Club member (via the Platinum benefit), I appear to get a lower price than if I book without logging in (my Amex card is the registered card on the account). I also see on the agreement that my excess is $0. Not sure if this would apply in your case though.
Amex does a bad job of explaining this. I will do a better job.
Every country has different laws about what level of insurance must be legally provided when you rent a car. The USA is one of very few which allows you to get away with no insurance at all if you so choose.
Does that mean you have to book via the rental’s US websites for the Amex cover to be applicable / only applies to rentals in US?
Reawakening this thread with a follow up.
Looking at US pricing, booking direct and choosing no insurance seems to be more expensive than the packaged rates offered by OTAs. I was comparing Hertz but are there agencies where Platinum actually has value versus an OTA?
You can find endless examples of different rates for the same car, depending on whether you’ve logged in or not, which site you’re on, and whether you’ve used a discount code.
Look in the car hire thread for an explanation of how to get the cheap no insurance price, I think its the Australian and Caribbean sites that offer it for Hertz.
Any sort of package will offer insurance inclusive rates that are very competitive, as compared to buying it as an add-on.
Insurance requirement in the US can vary by state.
Be aware what the insurance you have or are getting covers, your car, the damage you do to other cars and liability there, and protection of being the victim of an un-insured person in a collision.
The US has broadly speaking appalling driving standards, and safety doesn’t appear to factor in their road/junction design. People are very inclined towards lawyers and medical bills after an accident.@dougzz99 in the US I wouldn’t underestimate the value of the car hire firm’s insurance vs a pay now/claim later excess policy like the Amex Plat which is fine if you are dealing with minor damage but not so useful if anything bad happens and as people are keen on big upgrades you can easily exceed the £50k value cap. The cost of such insurance can be very low in the US vs Europe where extra covers are oddly expensive. The value of having the car hire firm (and its insurers) dealing with any major problems in the US or Latin countries is incalculable.
@dougzz99 in the US I wouldn’t underestimate the value of the car hire firm’s insurance vs a pay now/claim later excess policy like the Amex Plat which is fine if you are dealing with minor damage but not so useful if anything bad happens and as people are keen on big upgrades you can easily exceed the £50k value cap. The cost of such insurance can be very low in the US vs Europe where extra covers are oddly expensive. The value of having the car hire firm (and its insurers) dealing with any major problems in the US or Latin countries is incalculable.
I absolutely agree, 100% agree. But I feel I endlessly repeat the £50K limit on Amex and the value of proper insurance. In the USA I always buy the no excess, included cover, the peace of mind alone is worth it. If buying it as a package with rental it’s not expensive. People also need to understand what they’re insuring, and what levels of cover they have. What seems like a lot is nothing once a lawyer is involved and potentially medical bills.
Two examples. A rental with National. Whilst driving on an Interstate I was suddenly in a large storm beating the car with hailstones the size of large marbles. Even the trucks had slowed to 20mph and I was sure a window was going to break-in. Nothing did but the car was left looking like someone had hit it hundreds of times with a ball pein hammer. On return the agent said drove through storm huh, I said yes there was no where to shelter, they replied that’s fine you have the full insurance, walked away.
An Avis rental in Tampa was considerably worse. I was hit from behind, part rotated and drove into a wall, lots of airbags fired and it was a horrible experience. Fortunately not injured just shook-up. Phoned Avis, gave them all details, they Ubered me to a location to collect a replacement vehicle. With hindsight I should have left that for a day or two as I was not in a good place to drive, but the point was they sorted it all. That was a $75K list price SUV, which I’m sure was written off. The driver that hit me was cited by the police that came, she had $10K of cover.
I would never rely on add-on or credit card policies for more than a £1500 excess, or something I was prepared to cover. I’m always a little bemused by the mindset of many on this site, although I guess it’s a range of people. But in regard to the USA with £2K business airfares, hotels at £200 a night (minimum) who cares in regard a couple of hundred for car insurance through the rental company.
£50k? Gosh, not much better than Curve. Our next US trip we plan to take lots of bags and I would rather not have them on the back seats. A big barge could easily be £50k.
@JDB my insurance experience with the big companies has been positive too.The whole booking experience with Avis in the US seems very casual – I signed up with Amex Plat to Avis Preferred (Presidents club). I’ve booked a few times now over the last few years. My AMEX card is the default payment card on the account and I’ve added my driving license etc to the account. The first time, I had to go to the ‘preferred desk’ but no selling of insurance – just wanted to check my passport and driving license. After that…see below.
I reserve a car via the Avis App via the ‘pay later’ option (I usually book a mid sized SUV and always get upgraded to a full size SUV and there is no option to add ‘extra’ insurance), get to the airport, get a message telling me which bay the car is located in. I go to the car, quickly check it over and exit the airport. At the exit, the guy scans the car, looks at my driving license and off I go. No obvious rental agreement in sight.
On return, the guy checks the fuel is topped up, and off I go. If I’ve used tolls, a few weeks later, I get the tolls charged to the AMEX (plus the daily convenience fee for the days I’ve used tolls). I’m not sure if this is the ultimate in convenience or foolish on my part.
@vzzbuckz – it isn’t really that the process of hiring a car in the US is “casual” – you can’t afford that in such a litigious country. It’s more that the procedure is designed less for tourists and more for US customers whose personal car insurance usually also covers rental cars identically. This is why it’s possible to rent a car in the US with no or minimal insurance cover in some states. It’s all also about convenience because car rental there is so much more prevalent for domestic travellers.
You don’t need to visit a desk because Avis is satisfied that it has a method of payment, driving licence and ID on record, spouses are usually also included at no cost and your Presidents Club membership means you have agreed to the rental contract without each one needing a signature. Avis assumes that you have made the insurance elections you need in your profile and at the time of booking and the onus is on you to check that you do have the cover you want; it’s not up to Avis to advise you.
So, in response to the last phrase of your post, it’s only foolish if you don’t know what you are or aren’t covered for. It doesn’t matter so much if say you are not covered or don’t have high enough cover for lost baggage or travel inconvenience as you can probably afford to cover the cost if necessary. However, for medical or motor the sums involved, particularly in the US, can be astronomic.
It would therefore be wise before renting the car to see what their cover offers (plus its limits) and what any Amex Plat or other excess policy might offer in addition and particularly how those separate policies operate in practice. You may find that the excess policies are just too lightweight in the Americas and might leave one very exposed, and not just financially. There are some very cheap excess policies for sale and if you read them carefully, you will see why they are cheap. Hopefully nothing bad will happen and it rarely does, but as with most insurance you will be seriously grateful that the right cover is in place if needed. It’s not really something to cheapskate on.
Personally, I would not feel comfortable exclusively relying on any excess policy in the US/Americas but I would in Europe.
@vzzbuckz Assuming (and I fully accept this is all assumption and you should do your own research) you’re in the UK, have set your Avis account up with nothing odd, and are renting through the normal avis.co.uk channel you’ll be offered US rentals including zero excess LDW, and Third Party Liability up to $500K per incident. There will be exceptions to this amount on a state by state basis, but I believe this is true for CA and FL.
Whether $500K is sufficient is a personal decision. It’ll cover any normal sort of accident, but the US is a place where they love a court case, and as I said in a previous post once lawyers and medical bills are involved what looks like a large amount of coverage suddenly feels very under-insured.Correct – I am based in UK and offered normal avis.co.uk prices in Pounds. Adding on the Amex Platinum card, this offers: 1) $0 Excess and cover up to £50,000 for CDW. Appreciate, the cost of the car, in a total write off, may be more than £50K so a potential gap there. 2) Legal Costs – up to $US 1 million (as stated in the Amex travel policy for US only).
What I don’t know is whether the process of making a claim for excess would be transparent (Avis would speak to Amex?) or whether they’d charge the card and I would then have to deal with Amex.
President’s Club covers free Roadside Assistance Plus and Free Additional Driver. As an aside, the AMEX insurance details cover applying only to those drivers named on the rental agreement but if there is no ‘rental’ agreement – how are additional drivers covered?
Looking at alternatives, BA provide cover too but their documentation is ‘weak’ to say the least. Typical cover for Florida (for example) includes Third Party Liability with no mention of the max value, CDW with no mention of the maximum value (but it does implicitly state £0 excess) and that’s about it.
From my perspective, this is very casual, with markets such as Florida being very tourist oriented.
Was the rental agreement not emailed to you on collection?
You should check your email registered with them as you should have the agreement electronically at minimum. The preferred desk in the garage will print one if you’d rather that, but this undoes the benefit of take care and leave.I made a claim on the Platinum car insurance last year for an incident in the US. It was fairly straightforward and they paid out a couple of weeks after I initially submitted the claim. The process went: Avis assessed their damage to the car and sent a bill, I contacted AXA (I believe through the Platinum insurance phone line), was advised to pay the bill (around £2k) and claim it back off AXA. did so and then was asked by AXA to send my flight confirmation email and the police report as well as proof of payment of the bill for damage. Payment of claim was confirmed via email and my credit card reimbursed with the amount.
In my case it helped that there was no question of fault as the car was parked and unoccupied at the time of the incident, which was captured on CCTV. Perhaps this would have taken longer otherwise. If the bill had been for a much larger amount I don’t know whether AXA would have agreed to pay it directly if I had asked but I was happy to pay first in the given circumstances.
I would advise against bypassing the rental desk if you want to add an additional driver to the rental. As the policy specifies that any additional driver needs to be named on the agreement I always ask the staff at the rental desk to add my OH to the rental, even though they are allowed to drive it as my cohabiting partner. I have asked about this specific issue when I’ve had standalone car rental insurance policies in the past and the answer has always emphatically been that their name must be on the rental agreement to be covered. If you gently insist on this at the rental desk, citing the insurance issue, they should agree to do it for you. Depending on the company, the process for adding the extra driver to the rental document without incurring any extra cost may not be obvious and a more senior colleague may have to get involved, but IME they’ve always been able to add the extra name n the end.
I made a claim on the Platinum car insurance last year for an incident in the US.
That’s interesting. Did you book Avis directly as a President’s Club member with the AMEX code assigned to your account? I’m wondering why they sent you a bill if the CDW had a $0 excess (my rentals via the above method have a $0 excess under ‘Covered for Loss or damage’) or did you book Avis separately so had an excess to pay?
Thinking back I’ll have booked the rental before I upgraded to Platinum so that might well be why- I was already a member but not President’s club. Sorry for the confusion. In the US generally though I’m not sure you usually have a car rental excess as we understand it in Europe, as in being liable for a flat fee above which the insurance automatically provided by the rental company covers the rest. Certainly when I’ve rented from other companies I’ve been asked about the “co-pay”, referring to what I’d have to pay the underwriter of my policy rather than the rental company, but maybe the deal between Amex and Avis gives that coverage automatically in the case of rentals with Avis. I wouldn’t like to say for sure either way, others on here might have more knowledge of this. Of course things might vary in the US from state to state as well as between rental companies.
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