Renting a car for your winter vacation?

Car rental companies charge hefty fees for collision damage waiver insurance.  There are things you should know before you buy or reject this coverage. 

  1.     Your personal auto insurance policy may provide coverage for this, especially if it is a Minnesota policy.

  2.     Policies written in other states generally provide collision coverage on rental cars if you have collision on one of your own vehicles.

  3.     In addition, many credit cards include collision damage waiver insurance as one of the benefits of being a card holder. 

Despite these apparent solutions, there are still some situations where you might end up wishing you had bought the rental car company’s insurance.  Two areas which have caused problems are:

  1.     When the rental car company adds an administrative fee for claim process involvement.

  2.     If the car rental company wants additional damages paid for the diminished value they claim their car has suffered beyond repairs.

Your insurance company may consider these latter two types of charges to be unreasonable and balk at paying them.  If the car rental company then wants to collect such charges from you, they have your credit card number on file.