Just wondering if anyone has used or know of any independent insurance company's that offer rental car insurance for Australians in the US ?
There seems to be a few I have found that offer very cheap insurance for US residents e.g $8 a day compared to $30 a day or more that they try and sell to you at the rental car counter.
Cheers
If you pay with a credit card, check the credit card pds, you may get free insurance for rented cars. I did when I was in the US
Read the fine print. Make certain the product you are looking at is comprehensive insurance over the vehicle. A lot of those insurances cover the excess payable when making a claim... They do not cover a claim when denying insurance offered by the rental company. Ie on your comprehensive car insurance policy in australia you would have to pay an excess in the event of a claim. $650 is standard. These credit card and other policies usually are insuring you against this excess in relation to an accident overseas. This excess can vary greatly. For example in Australia it can be $2,000 on a 4wd or campervan. I incorrectly assumed I was insured against an accident for years travelling abroad and only found out what it meant when some friends had accident. They had to pay the total repair costs. Car hire and insurance in USA is dirt cheap. Take out full insurance there, shop around. 
Pearl is correct, better read exactly what it is that credit cards cover.
Jman, I went through this recently, where I had 3 weeks in US with the family and hired a wheelchair accessible van - had the option of supplying my own insurance or an exorbitant one they could provide through a 3rd party insurer. Hire company was apologetic and helpful, but had no other options. Apparently most US drivers have portable insurance - ie their own insurance covers them for all cars they drive (up to limits)
After an extensive search the only one I could find was a UK based insurer, and you had to be resident in EU to get it.....
In the end I had to pay the rip off price....and yes it was something like $30 a day or more.
Let me know if you have more success than me as I will go back again I am sure....
Select to expand quotepearl said..
Read the fine print. Make certain the product you are looking at is comprehensive insurance over the vehicle. A lot of those insurances cover the excess payable when making a claim... They do not cover a claim when denying insurance offered by the rental company. Ie on your comprehensive car insurance policy in australia you would have to pay an excess in the event of a claim. $650 is standard. These credit card and other policies usually are insuring you against this excess in relation to an accident overseas. This excess can vary greatly. For example in Australia it can be $2,000 on a 4wd or campervan. I incorrectly assumed I was insured against an accident for years travelling abroad and only found out what it meant when some friends had accident. They had to pay the total repair costs. Car hire and insurance in USA is dirt cheap. Take out full insurance there, shop around.
Yes thats the way I understand it that your travel insurance will only cover the excess if you have insurance in the 1st place!
Also in the case of an accident you can be charged for the loss of earnings on the rental car as well as the damage weather your fault or not.
Select to expand quoteParadox said..
Pearl is correct, better read exactly what it is that credit cards cover.
Jman, I went through this recently, where I had 3 weeks in US with the family and hired a wheelchair accessible van - had the option of supplying my own insurance or an exorbitant one they could provide through a 3rd party insurer. Hire company was apologetic and helpful, but had no other options. Apparently most US drivers have portable insurance - ie their own insurance covers them for all cars they drive (up to limits)
After an extensive search the only one I could find was a UK based insurer, and you had to be resident in EU to get it.....
In the end I had to pay the rip off price....and yes it was something like $30 a day or more.
Let me know if you have more success than me as I will go back again I am sure....
Yep I will keep searching!
I ended up booking through www.rentalcars.com/au/ and found a Mini Van deal with all the Insurances thrown in and listed up front, seems like a good site to book with.
Always the issue.
Always the issue.
I think Jman's issue is solved so a tangent is probably OK.....
So I'll comment....bit of a rant...
We do at least here have red and blue stickers to define levels of mobility (they do not in US). Red stickers are for those that can exit a vehicle and walk, but might have difficulty or are slow and need to be a bit closer. Unfortunately shopping centres have an open policy that they will not do anything if a red parks in a blue spot....accordingly reds in a blue are pretty much open slather on private property (most shopping centers).
The problem that people do not realise is that a vehicle with a wheelchair needs room to unload. Standard parks just do not allow the space needed for the ramps or hoist or operate - sometimes at the side, sometimes at the back. It is not necessarily an issue of how close to the entrance, but the larger physical space required, accordingly if no blue spots are available, there is often no park available...full stop.
It can be frustrating, especially when you have circled for 15mins hoping for somewhere to unload, and a seemingly able bodied person with a red sticker gets in front of you and takes the blue spot, gets out and walks into the shops. Said person could have easily parked in a normal space 20 meters further away, but no, they had to take that blue spot because that 20m apparently makes a difference -irrespective that they still now have to walk 200m to the shop they wanted and back....
And don't get me started on mothers with two able bodies kids in the back that think parking in a blue spot that is visible in front of the IGA for a few mins is justified because she is too lazy to park around the back and ask the kids to get out and walk into the shops with her.......
^ It's just the way people are. It seems nobody wants to walk an extra ten metres from a parking spot to where they are going.
My local small shopping centre has a gym in it.
At around 4.30 to 5pm when everyone is stopping off at the shops on the way home, people are also stopping off at the gym.
They always take up the parking spots closest to the door and then expand out to the extremities of the parking lot.
The shoppers then have to park at the outer extremities of the parking lot, negotiating the trolleys through a maze of cars and bounciing over numerous steel obstacles.
They're going to the gym to run on a tread mill for twenty minutes and do other stuff to get them fit, but they can't walk 20, 30, 40, 50 metres to the door?
The walk is free. Use it as warm up for the gym.
Why not start parking at the outer edge of the parling lot and when that's full work you way back to the door?
