Why You Should Book Through A Car Hire Broker: The Benefits of Booking Through Zest Car Rental.

As we prepare to head into a new year, you may already be thinking ahead to holidays you’ve got booked, or trips you’re going to make. You might be considering booking your car hire already, and find yourself wondering about what the benefits are of booking through a car hire broker as opposed to booking directly with a car rental provider. We discuss below the many advantages that come with booking your car hire through Zest Car Rental.

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Insurance and excesses with Zest bookings

All bookings through Zest come with Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) and Theft Waiver (TW) as standard- this is included within your rental price. These waivers reduce the amount you are liable for in the event of damage from a third-party collision or theft. Not only do we include these, but we also bolt-on either no insurance excess or Excess Reimbursement Insurance (ERI) as standard. This means in the event of a third-party collision or theft, you are not liable for the excess amount. Either there is no excess to pay, or your excess is reimbursed from the insurance policy.

As with any insurance policy, there are exclusions to this cover. Single-party damage to certain parts of the vehicle such as the wheels, glass parts, roof, mirrors, undercarriage etc are not covered. For example, a chipped windscreen or punctured tyres. To cover these parts, we offer our additional top-up insurance. Although this product is not currently available to residents of certain countries, we are looking to develop an inclusive product in the future.

The hard sell of local insurance

If you are able to meet the terms of the hire (such as age range and licence requirements), then you do not need to accept any locally offered insurance product. If you have taken out our additional top-up insurance, or have an annual policy through an alternative provider, you can decline the local insurance.

Should the local representative make you unsure of what cover you already have in place, we are available for assistance, offering 24/7 emergency telephone support, and can be contacted for further information. It’s always better to contact us at the time of queries such as these, as once you have signed to accept a product, it can be very difficult to reverse.

Making a claim on the insurance

We detail how to make a claim on the insurance on your rental voucher. Our Customer Support Team are on-hand to assist you with any queries you have regarding this process or for any assistance. We are able to assist in gaining relevant documents from the car rental providers necessary to proceed with an insurance claim. We’re also able to liaise with the insurance company on your behalf, should you have any queries.

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Monitoring providers

As we develop close relationships with the car rental providers, we’re able to offer exclusive deals and inclusions. We’ve been able to include fair fuel policies, CDW with zero excess liability, and breakdown assistance on all bookings. We also negotiate a free additional driver and unlimited mileage offers where possible.

The performance of all the car rental providers that we work with is closely monitored. We request feedback by sending out a survey to all our customers post-rental for them to rate the quality of the vehicle and service received from the provider. The ratings they are given based on these reviews are shown on our website when obtaining a quote.

Should a car rental provider continually fall below our expectations, we would cease to stop working with them. Therefore, your feedback following a rental is vital. We can’t suggest improvements to a supplier if we’re not aware of any issues you’ve had.

24/7 emergency support

If you’re collecting the car and you’re unsure about a charge on your rental agreement, call us immediately. Do not accept the local insurance if you don’t want it. If you feel pressured, call us immediately. If you’re being charged for an additional driver but your rental voucher says this should be free, contact us as soon as possible.

If you have an accident throughout your rental, get in touch with us immediately for advice.

Whatever queries or concerns you have, contact us at the time. It can be very difficult for us to resolve certain issues if we aren’t made aware of them at the time.

More than just a broker

Zest offer more than just a platform to search and compare car rental deals and prices. Yes, we’re a third party, but we’re a third party that are here to assist you. Whatever query you have, we can be contacted via email, online chat or telephone for support. We ask for customer feedback once your booking has been confirmed, to gauge where improvements could be made to our service. A survey is issued post-rental to allow you to provide comment on the service and vehicle provided by the car rental provider. We’re always looking for ways we could improve.

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Inclusions

All bookings through Zest include Collision Damage Waiver and Theft Protection as standard. We negotiate this along with no insurance excess OR Excess Reimbursement Insurance (ERI) with the car rental provider. To cover damage to parts of the vehicle that are excluded from collision or theft cover, we offer the additional top-up insurance which is cheaper than that offered locally by the car rental provider. If you’re confused by car hire insurance, read our complete guide here.

Depending on supplier negotiations, we are able to offer a free additional driver with some deals. We know that sharing the driving can make your trip easier so will always consider this when entering into an agreement with a new car rental provider.

Many rental cars booked through Zest include unlimited mileage- be sure to check the green ticks and the rental terms on the quotation page to see which car rental providers offer this.

Zest includes breakdown assistance with all bookings. When collecting the hire car at your pick-up point, the supplier will list on the rental agreement the contact details and instructions for you to follow should you require breakdown assistance. You don’t need to pay extra for this. Only in cases where the breakdown is deemed to have been caused by negligence would you not be covered free of charge.

Remember that we offer 24/7 emergency telephone support via our main office number. Should you have an issue outside our normal office hours, you can call us for support and assistance. It’s always better to make us aware of issues as they occur, rather than post-rental, as it can be difficult to resolve situations when days have passed.

Written by Jessica Juby.

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