How It Works: Rental Car Coverage, Part 2

In Part 1, we discussed one of the restrictions placed on rental car insurance. This installment covers a few more:

Second, a rental used by a driver “under the influence of intoxicants, drugs, or any other substance know to impair driving ability” will void the coverage. It may not say “legally intoxicated”. “Under the influence” means one beer or one glass of wine. This is standard language with the Big 3 (Hertz, National and Avis) and will be found with other rental car companies. This includes taking of medicine like for a cold or the flu. This is the single most problematic exclusion in a car rental contract because you’re going on vacation to have fun, right? Even if it is a business trip you not doing it to not enjoy yourself. Be extremely careful here and take great care to keep from cancelling this coverage due to this Prohibition.

Third is using the vehicle in an “abusive or reckless manner, or if convicted of careless driving”. Some rental companies can and will exclude “violation of anytraffic law. See if your contract has this before you sign it. See if it can be removed. If it is in it and if the rental company won’t remove this then you may want to use another rental company that does not have this prohibition as a part of their agreement.

To be continued...

--Steve Whitten