When you show up at a rental car counter, chances are you just want to get on with your trip. But then you’re faced with an expensive question: Do you buy the rental company’s insurance?
It’s not cheap, but experts say it’s also usually not necessary.
Kevin Brasler travels a lot for work and has seen agents pressuring customers to buy the company’s insurance over and over again.
“All the anxiety they ramp up when you’re trying to get your rental car. They know that that triggers a response from us,” he said. “We’re already worried. We’re in an unfamiliar area, driving an unfamiliar car. We think something might go wrong.”
But Brasler’s day job is as a consumer watchdog at Consumers’ Checkbook. He said the insurance upcharge is a big moneymaker for rental car companies.
“Given the aggressive sales pitch that they give, they clearly are making a lot of money and clearly are incentivizing their employees to push coverage,” he said.
Loss damage waiver coverage, which covers damage to a rental car itself, has grown dramatically in price. NewsCenter 5 found it ranges from $26.99 a day at Enterprise and National to $32.99 at Budget and $33.99 at Hertz. Those prices add hundreds of dollars to the cost of a weekly car rental. Add in liability coverage, and the price can run as much as the cost of the car.
Most people don’t need the coverage because their own car insurance already covers them.
Anyone with their own car insurance is already covered for liability — damage and injury to others — when driving a rental car.
What about the rental itself? If you have collision and comprehensive on your own auto insurance policy, it will cover damage to rental cars in the U.S. and Canada.
Plus, many credit cards — especially those geared toward travel — also offer coverage for many rental car categories if you use them to pay for the rental. But credit card coverage is secondary, which means you’ve got to go to your own insurance first, and then it will fill in the gaps.
“The problem with what the rental car companies sell is that it’s expensive coverage,” Brasler said. “It’s already duplicating the coverage you have, and even if you don’t have auto insurance, what they’re offering is really pricey.”
So, another option if you don’t have your own insurance coverage or don’t want to use it, consider buying rental insurance from a third party. Booking sites might offer protection that’s cheaper. American Express also now offers cardmembers $100,000 of primary rental coverage for as little as $25. That price is not per day, but instead covers the entire rental period.
“I think it speaks to the fact that what the companies, the rental car companies, are charging is way overpriced,” Brasler said.
Experts also recommend taking your own photos of every side of a rental car before driving it out of the lot, as that will help provide evidence if they try to assess you for damages that were already there.

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