Good news for anyone who is worried about those insurance excess amounts if you need to claim. Those very nice people at insurance4carhire have introduced a policy for people who are not renting a car, but just taking out their annual pet insurance, house insurance, motor insurance and health insurance.
These products from their brand insurance4excess are for consumers in today’s market who could claim on their insurance and end up paying the excess.
It works in this way. A customer takes out the Silver £500 Excess policy that costs £75. The client has a £500 Excess on their main insurance policy. A claim is made to the amount of £1200. They are liable pay the first £500, and the Insurance Company pays the remaining balance of £700. Once the valid claim has been settled they will be reimbursed.
There are three levels of cover. Bronze that costs £49 will cover up to £250 excess, Silver costing £75 will cover up to £500 and Gold costing £99 will cover up to £750 of excess.The products are under the insurance4carhire banner and the Motor excess policy has been around for the past couple of years or so.
In fact jml-insurance,co.uk have been introducing this product on line when I met up with Larry Ursich the founder of insurance4carhire at the London Motor Show and he was promoting it there. As my company jml-insurance.co.uk was one of insurance4carhire’s long established agents, it seemed a natural progression to add it to the products available.
The products works along the lines that generally the higher an excess a consumer opts for the cheaper the premium will be, however if there is a claim then the customer lands up paying the excess. Like the other lifestyle product range there a three levels of cover. Bronze costing £39 covers up to £250, Silver costing £59 covers up to £500 and the Gold policy costs £79 and covers up to £750 of excess.
2009 is a time when consumers will be wanting to save money and by purchasing excess insurance they can do this if they are likely to be claiming on their insurance policy and having to pay the excess so it seems like a good idea to start the new year with.
Enjoy the Christmas and New year break and if you are hiring a car when you are away, don't forget to get your car hire excess insurance. You can even buy it on a Daily basis at £4.50 a day now. That won't break the bank balance!
Thursday 18 December 2008
Saturday 29 November 2008
Renting a car?
Do you know that the Excess can cost more than the car? This insurance is a great way to save money and have peace of mind when you rent a car - a great selection of policies available.
When a rental car is damaged or stolen, the driver is asked to pay the first portion of the repair or replacement costs. This is known as the Excess.
You can take out an inexpensive policy daily or annually to cover you not only for the total amount of Excess for which you are liable if the car is damaged or stolen, but also for damage to the roof and undercarriage of the car, and windows and tyres.
There are several companies offering this type of policy. One of the original companies is insurance4carhire.com It was Founded in 2002 by Larry Ursich, Insurance4carhire is an innovative internet insurance company whose core business is the provision of car rental Excess insurance. For 10 years, Larry ran his own car rental broking company, working closely with Dollar and Budget. After noting the high costs being charged by the car rental companies for Excess cover, Larry decided to develop a better alternative: annual car rental Excess insurance products offering customers convenience, peace of mind and very significant savings.
Another company is Questor Insurance Car Hire Insurance Questor is a new type of insurance broker conceived and set-up to transact business on the Internet. They say unlike their competitors they have not taken products sold over the telephone and then converted them to the Internet, they have designed all of their products specifically to be sold on the Internet.
Questor employs a sophisticated but simple to use web application which allows their clients to manage their insurance portfolio at a time to suit them without having to contact Questor.
Friday 28 November 2008
Advice on car rental before you collect the hire car
Before you leave home - Ensure thay you are carrying both your picture(credit card style) and paper driving licences. The paper licence is essential as it shows any endorsements you may have.
When you collect the car:
Check the vehicle for damage if it is night time make sure that you can properly view the car's bodywork. If it is raining borrow an umbrella from the hire company assistant.
Check the spare tyre
If it is really too dark or wet, let the company know any defects as soon as possible.
Most car rental locations will not accept debit or switch cards
You must have held a valid driving licence for one year
British licence holders should note that many car hire outlets will not release the rental vehicle on sight of a photocard driving licence without also seeing the paper licence counterpart.They may also ask to see the paper licence counterpart of all named drivers.
Always ask what is included in the rates quoted
Never initial or sign an agreement without asking about each item
Do not over insure. If you have travel insurance you do not need personal effects or personal accident insurance
Do not be bullied by car hire companies saying the annual insurance or daily insurance you purchased at home is not adequate and you must buy their product.
Pre-purchase or Pre-reserve your car rental
Purchase from agents within your own country in case you need refunds or assistance
When you pick-up your vehicle determine where the drop off point is for your return
Ask if the return area has an attendant. If not, who do you return the car to?
If you leave the vehicle without check-in, examine it for damage and photograph it from every angle.
Drink drive laws vary from country to country - for example in Italy if you have a glass of wine and a grappa with dinner and you are stopped by the police - you will be fined.
Know your speed limits - these vary from country to country.
Speed / Radar cameras certainly apply to rental cars as well! The rental company will be notified and the renter contacted by the authorities. Speed traffic camera information is now being sent from one country to another. e.g. someone caught speeding with a French registered car in Italy will find that the fine will be reported to the French authorities if it is not paid.
Check with the Hire company if you can take the car out of the country you are renting in.e.g. Going from France into Italy or if renting in Ireland can you take the car into Northern Ireland or into the Republic of Ireland?
When you collect the car:
Check the vehicle for damage if it is night time make sure that you can properly view the car's bodywork. If it is raining borrow an umbrella from the hire company assistant.
Check the spare tyre
If it is really too dark or wet, let the company know any defects as soon as possible.
REMEMBER:
Additional Warning: Many car hire companies encourage the hirer to return the car empty. If you were to refill this yourself before taking it back, it is more than likely it would cost you less than the fuel deposit you paid when you took out the rental.
If you are renting a car via a company like Holiday Autos you will be provided with a voucher that you will have paid for in advance on line.
You then present the voucher to the car rental company. Some car hire companies will "swipe" your credit card so the details are stored on their computer, but will not actually debit your card at that stage. This is rather like when you book into a hotel.
They are taking your card details in case of accident, or any additional charges that are levied at the end of the rental like - out of hours collection - fuel charges - insurance etc.
Other companies will immediately debit your card as either they do no have this "swipe" and store facility or it is their policy to debit the account to cover a deposit, fuel charge etc. The downside to this is, if you are in a different currency e.g. renting in a "euro" currency country, but coming from the UK, Switzerland or the USA for example, your bank back home will charge for the conversion onto your card. On top of this exchange rates vary, so when you return the car and they "credit" your card again apart from being charged an exchange commission by your card/bank provider, the rate of the dollar, euro, Swiss franc might have gone up or down.
Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about this and the system does vary from company to company.
For more information car hire excess insurance visit
Annual Car Rental Insurance Renewal is here again
In October 2004 Philip Suter of JML Insurance and his wife read an article in a Saturday national newspaper about the benefits of taking out an annual car rental excess policy.
They rented cars at least half a dozen times a year and noticed how they were usually told that if the car was damaged there would be a large amount of money to pay and that was not included in the car rental standard insurance.
Naturally not wanting to have an additional worry they paid for additional insurance cover. They had never had a problem when renting a car apart from the time they used a low cost company who claimed the standard small Mercedes that was provided throughout that company's fleet had damage.
At that particular time a lot of people were invoiced for "alleged damage" and following a BBC television consumer programme the "alleged damage" deductions were refunded.
This incident and the fact that when you arrived at an airport to collect the car you were persuaded to part for non-budgeted income made this new product look interesting.
The insurance4carhire.com policy would cost around £50 each for European cover and renting a car several times a year would make it great value. Car rental companies would normally charge insurance excess by the day so even if you rented twice a year, the bill soon mounts up.
Philip Suter contacted the founder of insurance4carhire.com Larry Ursich, who had founded the company two years earlier in 2002. Larry had run his own car rental booking company for 10 years or so and noting the high costs being charged by the car rental companies for Excess cover, decided to develop a better alternative.
By this time jml-property-insurance.co.uk were selling a lot of HomeLet landlords and tenants property rental insurance policies and this alternative looked very interesting. Larry appointed jml Insurance as web agency and since then thousands of these policies have been sold to jml insurance and jml villas.com clients. Insurance4 car hire also cover North America and offer worldwide policies and two European renewal policies have just been sold to Philip Suter and his wife as the October termination notifications have been received.
Jml insurance.co.uk also offers other products from the husband and wife team of Larry and Maureen Ursich. "They keep on finding interesting non standard insurance products" says Philip. These include Second Home Emergency Travel Insurance, Motor Insurance Premium Reduction insurance and Car Key Insurance - it can cost over £400 to get a new set of car keys! It would interesting to see what products they develop next .
Philip Suter is a Director of JML Property Services, a UK based company offering Insurance products on line and management training with in the uk. He is a very experienced property consultant with over 30 years work in the Residential letting business and served in the national council of ARLA. He is a Fellow of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) and a Member of The association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA)
They rented cars at least half a dozen times a year and noticed how they were usually told that if the car was damaged there would be a large amount of money to pay and that was not included in the car rental standard insurance.
Naturally not wanting to have an additional worry they paid for additional insurance cover. They had never had a problem when renting a car apart from the time they used a low cost company who claimed the standard small Mercedes that was provided throughout that company's fleet had damage.
At that particular time a lot of people were invoiced for "alleged damage" and following a BBC television consumer programme the "alleged damage" deductions were refunded.
This incident and the fact that when you arrived at an airport to collect the car you were persuaded to part for non-budgeted income made this new product look interesting.
The insurance4carhire.com policy would cost around £50 each for European cover and renting a car several times a year would make it great value. Car rental companies would normally charge insurance excess by the day so even if you rented twice a year, the bill soon mounts up.
Philip Suter contacted the founder of insurance4carhire.com Larry Ursich, who had founded the company two years earlier in 2002. Larry had run his own car rental booking company for 10 years or so and noting the high costs being charged by the car rental companies for Excess cover, decided to develop a better alternative.
By this time jml-property-insurance.co.uk were selling a lot of HomeLet landlords and tenants property rental insurance policies and this alternative looked very interesting. Larry appointed jml Insurance as web agency and since then thousands of these policies have been sold to jml insurance and jml villas.com clients. Insurance4 car hire also cover North America and offer worldwide policies and two European renewal policies have just been sold to Philip Suter and his wife as the October termination notifications have been received.
Jml insurance.co.uk also offers other products from the husband and wife team of Larry and Maureen Ursich. "They keep on finding interesting non standard insurance products" says Philip. These include Second Home Emergency Travel Insurance, Motor Insurance Premium Reduction insurance and Car Key Insurance - it can cost over £400 to get a new set of car keys! It would interesting to see what products they develop next .
Philip Suter is a Director of JML Property Services, a UK based company offering Insurance products on line and management training with in the uk. He is a very experienced property consultant with over 30 years work in the Residential letting business and served in the national council of ARLA. He is a Fellow of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) and a Member of The association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA)
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