What Coverage Does Driver Have In A Rental Car Accident?

If you arrange to rent a car, expect the rental agency to present you with the opportunity to purchase a special insurance. Does it make sense to spend money on that coverage, when you already carry an automobile insurance policy?

What does your own auto insurance policy cover?

For a majority of the men and women that rent some type of vehicle, their own insurance covers collision, liability, personal effects, and medical expenses, due to injuries.

What is the nature of the liability protection that you have purchased for your own vehicle?

Some car owners buy only the most basic type of liability protection. That protects the policyholder from liability, if he or she causes an accident, and, thus, injures someone that was not in the policyholder’s vehicle. If you plan to rent a set-of-wheels, you must realize that a basic liability policy will not provide coverage, in the event that you should have an accident. If you want to be safe, you should buy the coverage offered by the rental agency.

How are you paying the rental agency?

If, like most people, you are using a credit card, then you might not need to worry about having coverage for any damages that could result from a car accident. Sometimes the credit card that gets used to pay for the rented set-of-wheels also covers damages, if the user of the card gets into an auto accident.

Your own policy has a deductible.

In other words, if you were to depend on your policy, then you would end up paying some amount of money (the amount of the deductible), in the event that you did become involved in a car accident. The insurance offered by the rental agency has no deductible, as per personal injury lawyer in North Bay.

In addition, your own policy includes a stated limit, regarding the amount of damage that it will cover. In contrast, the insurance provided by the rental agency does not come with any limit. If you agree to pay for the agency’s insurance, and then you become involved in a serious accident, the agency must cover all of the accident-related damages. In other words, you are not wasting money by purchasing the insurance that has been presented by the person that is working at the rental car agency. You could be forcing yourself to deal with some very large bills, if you do not buy the agency’s offered coverage.

Even if you have an automobile insurance policy, it probably comes with a deductible and with limits. Consequently, you might need to cover the cost of some damages, if you were to become a party to a dispute, concerning an accident that took place while you were driving your rented vehicle.