All about car hire insurance at CarJet.com : compare our car hire insurance policies to the costs of purchasing locally. Car Hire
Here at CarJet.com, we sell an awful lot of car hire worldwide. Car Hire Insurance falls into two basic categories, car hire with an insurance excess and car hire with no insurance excess. This piece explains the differences and what exactly you're on the line for if things go wrong. You'd be amazed how many car hire websites there are out there that don't even mention car hire insurance.
Insurance is as important as the car hire price. That's why at CarJet.com, we're probably guilty of "over-informing" our customers about what's going down at each car rental location. Let's get cracking..
There are 2 types of car hire insurance :
These two headings above are clickable .. if you're in a real hurry : click your car hire insurance type to jump straight to that section. To the contrary, stick around maybe we can tell you some stuff you didn't know about car hire insurance. If you were looking for a sample policy or the key facts then click here to jump down there straight away.
Peace of mind comes as standard
Car Hire Insurance for car hire with Excess
car hire insurance with no excess | key facts & sample policy
This is the classic way car rental companies have operated since the beginning of time - the renter assumes a responsibility for damage to the rental car. This is usually expessed as a an excess value : ie, "the driver is responsible for the first 1,000 EUR (or whatever) of damage caused to the rental car's bodywork"..
Car hire with excess is generally accompanied by a "buy-out", a daily waiver value that the renter can pay to reduce the car hire excess value to zero. These "waivers" are just that, the rent-a-car company waiving (absolving) your responsibility to pay the damage to the rental car.
So far so good, but as we know, the buy-out waivers can be very expensive. Let's look at three real examples for car hire Spain, car hire Portugal and car hire France for the same mid-size car for a 7 day rental...
Case #1 : National ATESA, Madrid Airport car hire (Spain)
Compare the cost of Atesa's car hire insurance with a Top-Up Gold..
Example car hire insurance buy-out costs for a 7 day car hire in Spain.
Atesa's smaller and medium rental cars have an insurance excess value of 608,00 EUR and a daily buy-out of 12,00 EUR per day. On a seven day car rental, our CarJet Gold policy is only 4,95 EUR per day - that's a saving of 49,35 EUR on a seven day car rental!
Case #2 : Budget Rentacar, Faro Airport car hire (Portugal).
Compare Budget Rentacar's insurances prices against CarJet's Gold top-up policy here
Example car hire insurance buy-out costs for a 7 day car hire in Portugal
Budget Rentacar Portugal also apply an insurance excess on car hire in Portugal. On this car type (a Ford Focus A/C type car), there is an car hire insurance excess value of 1250,00 EUR - the buy-out is 10,00 EUR per day (more than double the CarJet Gold price) but again, this does not cover the standard car hire exclusions like tyres, wheels, glass etc. CarJet's Gold Insurance policy covers the vehicle excess and other items up to a whopping £3,000 of maximum claim value (or equivalent in another currency) per car rental.
Case #3 : Citer, Bordeaux Airport car hire (France)
Citer France car hire insurance prices are very expensive compared to the cost of a CarJet.com Gold car hire insurance policy. Get the low-down here!
Example insurance buy-out costs for a 7 day car rental Bordeaux Airport.
Renting a car in France means accepting insurance excess values of 1100,00 EUR on a Ford Focus, National Citer's daily buy-out - more than twice the cost of the CarJet Gold policy! Again, contracting the daily buy-out with Citer won't cover you for blow-outs, lost keys, windows or damage to the underside of the car..
This is the end of the section on our Gold Top-Ups, click here to jump to key facts, claims proceedure and other stuff you should know without reading the stuff on our Silver policies.
Alicante's Port area
CarJet Silver - car hire insurance top-ups for car hire with no insurance excess
car hire insurance with excess | key facts and sample policy
Car Hire with no insurance excess is a very popular form of car hire in Spain, car hire in Portugal, Italy and the USA. The idea is brilliantly simple : build the car hire excess into the car's selling price so the customer has an "all-inclusive" deal with nothing to worry about.
Simple, but no longer the case. The car hire industry regards items like glass, tyres, windscreens, underside of car, roof, locks and lost keys as the renter's responsibility : so they're NOT included in the price of cars with no insurance excess.
Which is a real problem, since we'd all find it rather hard to have an accident in a car that ONLY affected the panels of the vehicle's bodywork and didn't affect any of the "excluded" items.
This is where CarJet's Silver top up insurance policy comes in. Because you don't need the bodywork cover, we've been able to strip this out from the full-blown Gold Policy (explained above). We just need to cover what's been left "not included" by the car hire companies.
Of course, the car hire companies themselves are also keen to jump on the bandwagon, so they've all created additional "waivers" (they can't use the word "insurance" since it's not an insurance policy). The idea : you buy their rinky-dinky add-on policy to cover what's not included in the no excess policy.
This would be great, but just like the Insurance Excess Waivers, they are often very expensive to purchase locally. In the example below, just like we did with the Gold policies earlier, let's just compare what's on offer from a sample of three car rental companies for a typical Ford Focus type car...
Case #1 : Goldcar Rental, Alicante Airport car hire (Spain)
Compare the Goldcar Relax insurance against CarJet's low-cost car hire insurance policies here
Example insurance buy-out costs for a 7 day car rental Alicante Airport.
Goldcar call their waiver "Relax", we've chosen to compare a 7 day car hire period (as per all the other examples), however Goldcar charge a fixed fee of 40,00 EUR for Relax cover for hires from 1 - 6 days in length. If you were comparing Goldcar's 3 day cost to CarJet Silver, the values would be 40,00 EUR for Goldcar against just 8,25 EUR for CarJet Silver (on hires under 7 days the policy costs 2,75 EUR). Goldcar now say they will pre-authorise customer's credit cards for 300,00 EUR if they decide NOT to take it's own waiver - but since CarJet Silver CAR HIRE INSURANCE covers you for over 3,000 EUR - who cares!
Even on a 7 day rental, we're 33,25 EUR cheaper than Goldcar on similar cover!
Case #2 : Advantage Rentacar, Malaga Airport car hire (Spain)
This graphic shows the cost of 1 weeks car rental insurance from Advantage and compares the cost to the CarJet car hire insurance policy.
Example insurance buy-out costs for a 7 day car rental Malaga Airport.
Advantage Rentacar offer a similar waiver system to Goldcar. The pricing for this simpler though, it's a flat fee of 6,00 EUR per day (let's not forget, that's more than twice as expensive as CarJet Silver car hire insurance) up to a maximum charge of 72,00 EUR per rental.
Case #3 : Centauro car hire Malaga Airport (Spain)
Let's compare the cost of Centauro's additional daily car rental insurance. As you can see from this example the savings are substantial!
Example insurance buy-out costs for a 7 day car rental Malaga Airport.
Centauro offers a waiver for it's customers also. Their waiver costs 6,00 EUR per day and has a maximum value of 72,00 EUR per rental. Unfortunately, there is also a minimum fee of 30,00 EUR - CarJet's Silver policy is only 2,25 EUR per day on 7 days hires. Even on the shortest hire, we'd only charge 9,90 EUR for the same cover as Centauro's 30,00 EUR minimum fee, you can "waive" goodbye to 20,10 EUR for the same cover as us!
This is the end of our section on the Silver Policies. Below, you'll find key facts about our insurance policies as well as the claims proceedure and other important stuff....
Policy Wording, Key Facts for car hire insurance policy
car hire insurance with excess | car hire insurance with no excess
So how do I get CarJet Gold or Silver Top-Up insurance?
Every time you research car hire prices on our website, you'll see we've included the option to purchase our Gold or Silver car hire excess insurance policies with the car at the time of booking. A little further on, you'll see a typical screen explaining the car hire insurance cover as part and parcel of your booking.
What does CarJet Gold or Silver cover me for?
GOLD : The policy covers charges made under the vehicle's insurance excess policy AND items such as windows, wing mirrors, roof, underside, locks, tyres and wheels, towing up to a maximum claim value of £3000.00 (or equivalent in another currency).
SILVER : Doesn't have the car hire excess element (since the car hire price has this included already) but does cover all the excluded items such as windows, wing mirrors, roof, underside, locks, tyres and wheels, towing, up to a maximum claim value of £2000.00 (or equivalent in another currency).
Is there a key facts or sample policy?
Yep, just click the link below for a new window containing the regulatory key facts page and a sample policy :
www.customer-zone.com/gold.php or
www.customer-zone.com/silver.php
Do I have to buy the policy with the car hire?
No, you can purchase the policies at the same time as you book your car. Alternatively, via our Customer Zone, you can add the policies at a later stage, providing of course you do so before the car is collected. We currently insist on purchase at least 3 hours prior to arrival, so if you've made it to the car rental company desk it's probably too late!
 15.30.31.png "An example of the screens on our site selling the top-up cover")
An example of the screens on our site selling the top-up cover
An example of the screens selling the top-up policies with the car rental - they explain in detail the additional cover we're providing.
Do I get a confirmation?
Yes, we will send you an email summary confirming your purchase. From within the CarJet.com customer zone, you can also access a pdf copy of the policy and claims proceedure to download at home.
What do I do on arrival?
Your car hire insurance top-up is a policy for you, not the car hire company. Simply complete the usual formalities at check-in, leaving a credit card swipe to cover the vehicle's car hire insurance excess value (if it has one). Make sure you don't inadvertently contract the car hire company's additional insurance. If you do, you'll be paying twice for the same cover. The CarJet Gold & Silver policies cannot be refunded, once you've collected your car, just because you've ended up paying twice..
How do I make a claim?
The claims proceedure is explained on the sample policy (above) and on the real policy. To make a claim, you will need to present copies of the receipts for any charges as well as your insurance certificate. This is available in pdf format inside the customer zone.
Regulatory notices
CarJet.com is a trading name of Travel Networks Europe (UK) Ltd. Travel Networks Europe (UK) Ltd. is an Appointed Representative of Halo Insurance Services Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, FSA Register number 504629. Travel Network Europe (UK) Ltd., Suite 3 Houghton Square, London SW9 9AN United Kingdom Registered Company No. 04633600.