Don’t get fleeced with your winter sun car hire

Winter sun seekers can look forward to parting with up to £100 for car hire excess insurance when they pick up their hire car from four popular winter sun destinations, representing an additional 50% on top of the original car hire cost.

iCarhireinsurance.com, a specialist provider of excess car hire insurance, compared the cost of hiring a compact family car for a week in Faro, Tenerife, Cyprus and Barcelona this winter and found dramatic differences.

Faro is the most expensive place for excess insurance with travellers facing the possibility of paying £100.80p to the rental desk, for a week’s excess cover, before they’ve even stepped into their hire car. Car hire excess insurance protects a customer from paying the first part of any claim up to the excess amount, which can be as high as £1500 in Cyprus and up to £1700 in Faro for instance.

The average cost of excess / waiver insurance in the four destinations was over £10 a day, three times the amount charged by specialist providers like iCarhireinsurance.com which offers a daily policy from £2.99. Its policies are also more comprehensive and cover vulnerable parts of the vehicle which are frequently excluded from car hire companies’ policies.

Without excess insurance travellers are liable for up to the excess amount if there is any damage to the car, even if it’s not their fault (e.g., it’s damaged in a car park) or if the car is stolen.

“While the original car hire rental price may seem reasonable,” said Ernesto Suarez, CEO of iCarhireinsurance.com, “travellers are then being fleeced at the rental desk. To keep your costs low make sure you buy excess car hire insurance in advance to save you three times the amount you would pay at the rental desk”.

Cyprus came out as both the most expensive and the cheapest place to hire a car, with one car hire company charging over £350 for a week’s hire of a compact family car, including the hire company’s own excess cover, while another company offered the same deal for £121.

The average cost in all four destinations for a week’s car hire, including the car hire company’s excess insurance, is £261. A saving of £50 could be made buying the excess car hire insurance in advance.