Rental Car Insurance through CC

Just the rental. Theft and damages.
Your personal auto insurance should cover the other stuff.

Domestic rental or international? If domestic, why would you ever get additional insurance you are covered if you have insurance already?

I came here to post my experience in 2017 with a rental in London, in which I used my credit card insurance. Someone side swiped both lower side panels on the driver's side of our rental car, must have been when we were parallel parked. It was barely noticeable, and I didn't notice it until the morning I went to return the car. No idea when it actually happened. I was sweating it because we were in London and I didn't have a police report or anything.

Anyway, upon return the rental car company took pictures immediately upon check in and mailed me an estimation of damages report that included pictures within 5 minutes at most. The damage issue took maybe 5 minutes longer than a standard in person check out. I did have to foot the $1200 estimate on my card I used to make the rental.

I then took extra photos myself also. But when I returned to the states I emailed my receipts, the rental car return estimate with photos, and maybe 2 other items to the 3rd party credit card insurance. Got my $1200 refund in about 30 days almost hassle free. I called once to double check they had everything, then woke up to an email and refund one day.

TLDR: the insurance through my CC worked incredibly well.

I have the Amex platinum. Something to read up on is primary vs secondary (I think that’s the proper term) insurance. Amex provides secondary insurance. Which means that if you decline all options at the rental counter, then your personal auto insurance is the first to take the hit with Amex filling the gap.

You can, at your option, decide to enroll your Amex rental insurance into a primary status on the website. However, a charge of 25 or 35 (I forget) will be added to every rental. So then basically, you’re paying a flat fee on a per rental basis instead of 1) paying the daily insurance cost via the rental company, and 2) putting your auto insurance on the front line in case of an accident.

Some cards, like the sapphire reserve, automatically provide primary insurance. That plus the fact that visa is accepted more worldwide is the reason why I added my wife as an AU to that card rather than the Amex.

Hope that helps. If you google primary vs secondary rental insurance credit card, there’s some good literature out there from sites like the points guy

Are you worried about a domestic rental or international?

quote:

---

I’ll direct this question towards international since I’m going to Canada in July and will be renting a vehicle.

---

I honestly don't know about Canada, I'm thinking your USA insurance may cover Canada? Maybe not on rentals actually. But since Americans routinely drive their own vehicles into Canada and Mexico they are different insurance wise than further away countries.

If you’re renting in the USA and driving to Canada, you have to remember to tell the rental company so they can give you some form saying the car is covered in Canada in the case of an accident. I was never asked for it, but I think it can be requested at the border and not having it may get you turned back around.