Looks like Irish car rental companies are still mis-selling car hire excess insurance

I have just come accross this article on the Auto Exress web site "Watchdog: Mis-selling car hire cover" by Mike Gibbs on the 22nd February 2012.

Reading the report it looks like the same old story is cropping up again. According to his article - "Conor Mills from east London pre-booked a car to be picked up at Knock Airport, Ireland, through online broker CarHire3000. The best deal was through Budget.Conor Mills from east London pre-booked a car to be picked up at Knock Airport, Ireland, through online broker CarHire3000. The best deal was through Budget.The car was fully insured, but Conor paid CarHire3000 an extra £26 for an excess waiver, to avoid having to shell out the 1,200 Euro excess if he damaged the car. But the lady at the Budget desk at Knock Airport told him CarHire3000’s excess waiver policy had loopholes big enough to drive a car through. “She said the insurance did not cover any accidents deemed my fault, or repair time,” Conor told us.So he forked out another 45 Euros (£37) for Budget’s own excess waiver. This was totally unnecessary". See full story here

From personal experiences over the years and other peoples experiences, I have written about these continual problems on this blog and with articles on the insurance4carrental.com site How Irish car hire companies are not improving Irish Tourism, Car hire company in Ireland charges for unwanted excess insurance, Irish car hire companies are taking visitors for a ride  and then in November 2011 iCarhireinsurance published Dubious Dublin airport car rental staff

It is such a shame that these companies continue to do this to tourists, business people and even their own nationals returning to the home country for a few days. It is not a good advertisement for Irish Tourism and this is happening at entry points to the country. 

On a positive note however, on the last three occasions my wife or I have rented a car in Dublin we have used Hertz. We have told them we have our own excess insurance, we are then told that they will deduct several hundred euro from the credit card till the car is returned, but there is no pressure to take their own products, which probably like in the story in Auto Express is exactly the same coverage and in reality, they have the right to deduct the amount from the credit card, but don't actually debit the account, unless it is required.

Irish car rental companies you are giving Ireland a bad name. It is about time that you thought more about returning customers than making a fast buck from the one standing in front of you.