Is credit card car rental insurance adequate ?

Bertiebigboss wrote: ↑ Hi Guys
Looking for some advice on rental car insurance, lots of mixed opinions online.

I don't have auto insurance of my own

I have a tangerine we
President's choice we
CIBC dividend platinum

I want to rent a car this weekend

I'm not looking to cheap out on insurance but if it isn't needed that would be great

Will the cover on my credit card be enough for majority of my needs

I'm young and thrifty

Vague ,I know already folks

Thanks

Have you read each of their rental coverage?

You'll be covered for damage to the rental vehicle itself if you use one of those cards. No credit cards cover liability (vehicles you hit, injuries, their medical bills, etc). In Canada, liability coverage will be provided by the rental agent, but only up to the provincial minimum, which is only $200,000 in BC (not a lot.) You can buy a liability top-up to $1M or more from any insurance company that sells car insurance, it doesn't cost a lot, and will almost certainly be cheaper than what it would cost at the rental agent.

Many years ago I scraped the side mirror on a pole when backing out when renting a car in Hawaii. Credit card covered all the costs of repair

Credit card will cover, but requires a lot of paperwork. If you bought the insurance from rental agency, you can save some time and just walk away a lot easier than dealing between CC and rental agency.

Bertiebigboss wrote: ↑ Hi Guys
Looking for some advice on rental car insurance, lots of mixed opinions online.

I don't have auto insurance of my own

I have a tangerine we
President's choice we
CIBC dividend platinum

I want to rent a car this weekend

I'm not looking to cheap out on insurance but if it isn't needed that would be great

Will the cover on my credit card be enough for majority of my needs

I'm young and thrifty

Vague ,I know already folks

Thanks

1. where (province/state) you are renting this car.
2. are you leaving that province/state
3. what vehicle are you renting
4. read you CC's rule and limitation and what you need to do for that coverage
5. are you currently paying for car insurance and do you have sef27/ocpf 27?


Yes to 5 mean CC insurance would not matter. Otherwise first 4 question would dictate your coverage.

also, no renting exotics, trucks or commercial vehicles.

It can be inadequate. There was a big thread here before about how the insurance on someone's card only covered them if the vehicle MSRP was $60k or less and they happened to rent a car just over that amount, and they got in an accident. Pretty sure they ended up being on the hook for the damages though I believe they had to argue with them to get to a reasonable repair estimate (because the rental company wanted some exorbitant amount at first). I believe as soon as the MSRP is over what they specify you are not covered at all.

Get the car rental insurance. You may save $90 more of less on the insurance for a weekend rental, but are you ready to pay a few thousand if damages are not covered by your credit card insurance, and can you afford the civil liability which can be hundreds of thousands worse case. Is that a risk worth taking in your life. Save the money elsewhere and enjoy your rental and weekend.

I don't agree with the above posters who say that buying the rental agent's CDW will be less paperwork or less headache than dealing with your credit card's CDW if you have to make a damage claim. There are too many rental car damage claim horror stories out there. Paying the rental agent's exorbitant fees for CDW coverage when you already have that on your credit card is throwing money away, IMO.

I wouldn't buy the rental company's insurance unless its third party one. Just as much of a headache and they take advantage of you being overseas if you were not renting locally.

I relied on my card CDW for a while until I bought ICBC's Roadstar Plus which covers rental cars. Prefer using this instead as there's no MSRP cap. Have been renting cars that are near that limit and I want to make sure there are no issues. It also covers third party and personal injury as well so not bad for like $50 a year.

bomber17 wrote: ↑ I relied on my card CDW for a while until I bought ICBC's Roadstar Plus which covers rental cars. Prefer using this instead as there's no MSRP cap. Have been renting cars that are near that limit and I want to make sure there are no issues. It also covers third party and personal injury as well so not bad for like $50 a year.

ICBC Roadstar's CDW comes with a $300 deductible. I've never seen that with any credit card's coverage, their CDW deductible is always $0. Why pay a $300 deductible when you don't have to? Use one of these free cards and never pay that $300: list-no-annual-fee-cards-free-rental-ca ... e-2223133/

I made a claim on my TD visa years ago for a dent in the bumper. It was easy with just one phone call and they took care of it with no hassle.
However it's not just paying for car damage that would scare me, it's the liability if someone sues you for $1,000,000 for a sore neck

Kiraly wrote: ↑ ICBC Roadstar's CDW comes with a $300 deductible. I've never seen that with any credit card's coverage, their CDW deductible is always $0. Why pay a $300 deductible when you don't have to? Use one of these free cards and never pay that $300: list-no-annual-fee-cards-free-rental-ca ... e-2223133/

$300 isn't a lot and it gives me more room to rent a nicer car and not limited by the $85,000 CAD MSRP. Plus, the credit card CDW works as second coverage anyways. I have confirmed with them they will cover the deductible so in the end, I don't have to pay anything.

Kiraly wrote: ↑ I don't agree with the above posters who say that buying the rental agent's CDW will be less paperwork or less headache than dealing with your credit card's CDW if you have to make a damage claim. There are too many rental car damage claim horror stories out there. Paying the rental agent's exorbitant fees for CDW coverage when you already have that on your credit card is throwing money away, IMO.

OP doesn't have his own car insurance so he lacks liability coverage, so he's on the mercy of what rental agency puts on it and jurisdiction matters.


Assuming he is renting in Ontario, min liability coverage is only $200K although I believe most will carry $1M with their cars. It get even worse if he rents in US. That's why where you rent matters.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-d ... e12063049/


Then on CDW, there are rules on different credit cards and limits. Of the 3 he listed, he should research on his own what the policy is. Most are limited to vehicles with max price of $55-$60K, non- commercial and non-offroad vehicle and must decline rental agency's CDW to activate.

I think it's stupid to have random internet guys telling him what's best when he is the one that needs to do some reading and do a risk assessment.

But he came off as lazy. So the laziest way to cover your ass is just pay for all the insurance rental agency offers.

Here OP, this is the insurance cert for your CIBC card. Read it.
https://www.cibc.com/content/dam/person ... ins-en.pdf

OP, your credit cards are good for what you are planning to do. Most cards cover up to $65k car value some do more. What i would do is call your regular car insurance and ask them how much it would cost to add non owned rental insurance to your current insurance. This will extend your car insurance to rental cars and also extend your liability to rental cars ($1 Mil or whatever you have). Its really cheap!

Bubblegum86 wrote: ↑ OP, your credit cards are good for what you are planning to do. Most cards cover up to $65k car value some do more. What i would do is call your regular car insurance and ask them how much it would cost to add non owned rental insurance to your current insurance. This will extend your car insurance to rental cars and also extend your liability to rental cars ($1 Mil or whatever you have). Its really cheap!

He doesn't have regular car insurance, he doesn't own a car. But he shouldn't have any trouble finding an insurance agent who will sell him liability insurance.

Kiraly wrote: ↑ He doesn't have regular car insurance, he doesn't own a car. But he shouldn't have any trouble finding an insurance agent who will sell him liability insurance.

Not sure how i missed it. Thanks for correcting

fkl118 wrote: ↑ I made a claim on my TD visa years ago for a dent in the bumper. It was easy with just one phone call and they took care of it with no hassle.
However it's not just paying for car damage that would scare me, it's the liability if someone sues you for $1,000,000 for a sore neck

Yeahhh unless you're a millionaire you don't really have to worry about that. The reason people sue people for those kind of sums is because insurance is the one paying out when they sue you. If you are uninsured or your insurance doesn't cover $1 million, and they don't have a hope of collecting the $1 million, the judgement isn't worth much more than the paper it's written on.

The 3PL, PD insurance rests with the insurance company, the additional coverages are to protect you from having to pay the rental company money for damages to the car you rented. So say the insurance company only had $500k in liability (just argument's sake here). You hit someone or cause property damage and that person(s) sue you for $3 million. Okay sure, whatever, but the insurance is only going to pay out $500k. They'll get that, at least...minus whatever they're gonna have to pay the lawyer(s). So now they go after you (the driver) personally for the remaining $2.5 million. Well sure they might win but if they have no hope of ever collecting that sum from you, well all they're going to get is the $500k the insurance pays out. And again that's even if they could get a judgement like that which is not very common in Canada and certainly not just because "their neck hurts".

Law prof of mine used to say, "You can sue anyone at any time for nearly anything. But that doesn't mean you're going to win; and, even if you do win, doesn't mean you'll be able to collect on the judgement."

Lawyers that do these kind of suits already know this and even if they file suit for more than the insurance covers they know their clients aren't going to see more money than the insurance covers in majority of cases. Again this is barring the person or corporation being sued being a multi-millionaire or billionaire, they could actually collect that money from.

Trust me the madness you have to go through to get someone to pay you even a couple thousand bucks after getting a judgement is, well, madness. They can keep avoiding it and getting away from paying you all sorts of ways and in the end the effort is often not even worth it. I can't even imagine trying to get millions out of someone that simply doesn't have the money lol.

fkl118 wrote: ↑ I made a claim on my TD visa years ago for a dent in the bumper. It was easy with just one phone call and they took care of it with no hassle.
However it's not just paying for car damage that would scare me, it's the liability if someone sues you for $1,000,000 for a sore neck

This! Imagine the van you hit in front of you had 6 adults, they all sue you $1,000,000 each

Even the mental stress of fighting that in court without insurance is enough to make you throw up