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Collision Damage Waiver | Damage Excess Waiver | Out of Hours | One Way Rentals | Roadside Assistance | Excess Reimbursement Insurance | Zero Excess Liability
When it comes to car hire insurance, we understand why customers get confused. It’s a confusing jumble of abbreviations and acronyms. They’re not designed to confuse customers, but they do. After all, abbreviations are designed to make things easy to understand. With that in mind, we thought it would be a great idea to clear things up for you with our jargon buster.
CDW – Collision Damage Waiver
Collision damage waiver (CDW) reduces your liability for the full cost of the vehicle, in the event of damage or theft. It’s not an insurance policy as such. It waivers your responsibility for the vehicle you’re hiring to a determined excess. Our most popular vehicle category, the supermini, cost between 12,000 and 18,000 euros in Spain or Portugal. That’s not an amount anyone wants to pay out in the event of a total loss. So the amount you’re liable for with CDW, called the excess, is typically around 1000 euros.
DEW – Damage Excess Waiver
Sometimes, the rental provider may offer you DEW. Not the morning moisture on the grass or the energy drink. No, Damage Excess Waiver is an extra insurance product sold by rental providers at the desk. This extra insurance usually removes the need for a security deposit, something some people do prefer. However, some less-friendly car rental firms (who we certainly don’t work with!) may often push this onto holidaymakers with hard-sell tactics or scaremongering. All of these extra insurances are totally optional and you don’t have to take them if you don’t want to. If you experience selling tactics you’re not comfortable with on a rental with us, call us and we can liaise on your behalf.
OOH – Out of Hours
Out of hours (OOH) fees are just that, fees for collecting or returning out of hours. Out of hours means the rental office/desk is closed at the requested pickup or return time. As some flights land in the early hours, often desks are closed. The need for a fee is because the rental company will need to pay staff overtime to handle your vehicle and arrange the agreement for you. We always display any extra fees payable on collection when on the quote results page.
One-way Rentals
If you’re collecting your rental vehicle in Boston and returning in Los Angeles, this is a One-way Rental. This usually incurs an extra charge which is payable at the local office. The charge covers the cost of the rental company arranging for the vehicle to be returned to the depot/office it was collected from. Though a road trip back across the USA sounds good to us too! When booking on our website you’ll see the one-way free broken down in the “mandatory extras” section of the vehicle card.
RSA – Roadside Assistance
Basically, RSA is breakdown cover, or Road Side Assistance. We always include a basic road side assistance package with all our bookings. This covers most breakdown instances except breakdowns caused by negligence. Mis-fuelling being one negligent instance. Most car rental providers will offer an upgraded service when you collect your vehicle. Like all upgrades, this is totally optional. Though if you want total peace of mind if you make a mistake, it’s worth opting for.
ERI – Excess Reimbursement Insurance
You’ll see the abbreviation ERI all over our website. This is our excess protection insurance that we include with all bookings that have an excess. We include it because we don’t think it’s fair for you to be liable if you’re involved in a collision. Usually with other brokers, if you haven’t taken out their extra insurance, you’ll be liable for the excess. With Excess Reimbursement Insurance, you pay the damage charge then claim back when you arrive home. 95% of claims are sorted within 14 days too, bonus!
Zero Excess Liability
You will also see the term Zero Excess Liability across our website too. But what does it mean? Put simply, Zero Excess Liability means you’re not liable for your car hire excess. In the event of a collision we feel it’s unfair for customers to have to pay. We cover you in two ways. We’ll either negotiate no excess deals with rental providers; or bolt-on Excess Reimbursement Insurance to the booking. Check out our insurance breakdown here for more info!
There’s lots of terms that some companies use to confuse customers when it comes to car hire. We try to keep car hire as simple as possible. We hope you’ve liked our jargon buster but if there’s anything you’re unsure of, just get in touch via email, live chat or on the phone and we’ll explain all you need to know. There may be more jargon that you get confused by, just let us know in the comments and we’ll ease any worry!
