With the Christmas holiday season only days away, the The British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA), the trade body for the UK car rental industry, is again warning customers to take extra care when confronted with cheap deals for Christmas car hire on the Internet or in the press.

In their press release issued on the 13th December they advised: Festive season travellers were caught out by bogus car hire companies this time last year, handing over deposits of hundreds of pounds for cars that never materialised.

The BVRLA believes that similar scams are being planned this year and has already made contact with Police and Trading Standards over one potential threat.

“These companies offer unbeatable prices and free delivery – but they really are too good to be true,” says BVRLA chief executive, John Lewis.

“Unfortunately it is very easy for fraudsters to build a simple website and set up a call centre to pass themselves off as legitimate businesses.

These sham operators are damaging the reputation of car rental and many other industries. We are working with the authorities to help stamp them out.”



In the meantime, the BVRLA is offering five simple tips for customers looking for safe and hassle-free car or van rental:

1. Only use a BVRLA member. Seeing our logo on the front desk or website is a sign that you are dealing with a reputable company that has been vetted and operates to a professional code of conduct. You will also be able to use our conciliation service in the event of any dispute. Find a BVRLA member via the ‘member locator’ on the BVRLA website?


2. Never hand over cash. Most reputable rental companies will only want to accept credit/debit card payment


3. Make sure the company is operating from a bona fide commercial premises, not a PO Box or virtual office, no matter how prestigious the location sounds



4. Make sure the company actually owns and operates the cars it is offering – all BVRLA members operate their own rental fleet.



5. Remember, if the price or service being offered seems too good to be true, it probably is and you may well end up out of pocket and disappointed!

Source BVRLA

Looking for car hire for that Christmas holiday trip? or January holiday?
Click on the image below to find out information abot Holiday Autos – Economy Car Hire and Carrental.co.uk

In practically every country in the world, by law you will need some form of rental vehicle insurance for a car, van, motorhome or mini bus that you are hiring if you are the driver of that hire vehicle.



Usually the law will stipulate that you must have a certain minimum level of third-party liability cover so that any awards against in the even of an accident and you have injured someone (or damaged their property) with the hire vehicle. In general most car hire / motorhome hire / van hire companies will include this ‘minimum third-party cover’ in their basic rental price.


The system can vary from country to country and it is always an idea to being somewhat cautious. In some countries such as the USA, individual State or national laws may set the required minimum at a very low level. If the rental car comes with say US $25,000 of third party cover and following an accident you have $500,000 awarded against you, then it will be you the driver to personally have to find the balance of $475,000! This is a very serious matter.


In the UK the third-party protection that comes with the vehicle rental insurance as ‘included in the price’ must provide unlimited financial protection by law.


In some countries the rental vehicle may also be provided with CDW (Collision Damage Waiver) included – even where it is not, the hire company will usually offer it to you to buy in addition. This can be at the time you book the vehicle or when you go to collect it.


The CDW function is to cover you against the cost of any damage incurred by the rental vehicle while it is being hired out to you. This protection includes theft. If the vehicle sustains damage and you do not have CDW then it will be you who has to pay for any repairs and vehicle repairs cost a lot of money normally and often you have no control on the amount that the repair company is charging unlike if it was you personal vehicle back home.


The Collision Damage Waiver / CDW provided by the rental companies will possibly contain some clauses that may also get you reaching for a small bank loan following an accident, but how many people actually reads this? Probably not too many like a lot of small print on documents.

Vehicle renters may find that the policy won’t cover the vehicle in total and that some areas or parts are excluded from cover. It will also typically contain a large excess that may fall in the range £500-£1600. That may be debited to your credit card after an accident as your ‘mandatory contribution’ towards the total cost of the claim and as the vehicle hire company has your credit card details there is not a lot you can do.


As you will not want to risk exposing your personal finances to a claim as a result of third-party or CDW limitations, you can protect yourself by taking out a little extra insurance. This is excess insurance.


Quite often the vehicle rental company will offer you what they may describe as ‘rental car/ rental van insurance top-up’. This means that for an additional sum they may remove the excess and cover the entire vehicle. In countries where it is applicable, they may also offer something called ‘Supplemental Liability Insurance’ (SLI) which can boost the amount of protection you have for third-party claims.


It is usually more economical for the person renting the vehicle to get the same protection at a lower cost by taking out a policy with an online insurance specialist provider of rental car insurance like those advertising on the www.insurance4carrental.com ?site. If you have one of their policies you would simply recover from them any costs debited to your credit card by the rental car company for items like the excess.


Many of these specialist insurance providers offer daily or annual policies for car hire and daily policies for van and motorhome hire excess. Some will even cover the older renter age group 75 – 85. After all people are living longer these days and going off on vacation more often in later life. In fact the way various Governments are now changing the retirement age, many more people will be taking later life holidays.

Unfortunately hiring a rental vehicle be it a car, van, motorhome or even a minibus is not one hundred per cent straightforward so do make sure you have adequate protection when you rent. Start by visiting http://www.insurance4carrental.com/?today. You choose which company you want to use and make all the arrangements direct with the individual insurance company.

Keep a copy of the original booking confirming the price



Keep all paperwork when you collect the vehicle


Keep the sign off paperwork when you return the vehicle


Check your credit card statement to make sure that you have not been charged for any additions that you never agreed to


Keep details of rental vehicle’s registration in case you are sent a parking fine or speeding fine and the vehicle rental company have provided the authorities with the wrong vehicle or renter information


Click on link below to read all the article at Euro-rentals.com

Five important points to remember when you hire a car, van or motorhome

Unfortunately with a lot of car hire operations you do not appear to pay the price that you saw “on the shelf”. Some of the extras are easy to explain – It’s half term holiday time and you are taking your two small children to Portugal for a week. You don’t want to have to bring your child seats with you, so you expect to pay extra to rent them from the car hire company.

Until all cars come with sat navigation, then you will have to rent these as well, although they are a lot easier to transport to Portugal for that holiday than child seats!

The one “extra” that you will normally be asked to buy at the car hire check in desk is for excess insurance. ? When you rent a car, you will find that your car rental agreement normally includes cover for Collision Damage Waiver – CDW (damage to the rental vehicle) and Theft. There is almost always an excess on the Collision Damage Waiver and Theft.

Unfortunately the person who hires the car (van or motorhome) is? still liable for the Excess on CDW and Theft. When a rental car is damaged or stolen, the driver is asked to pay the first portion of the repair or replacement costs. This is known as the Excess.

Fortunately for a low annual or daily premium a car hire excess insurance company can provide excess insurance protecting the customer against excess charges whenever he / she? rents a car/van/motorhome.

Buying the insurance policy from an independent provider like the ones advertising here at insurance4carrental.com ?will normally be a lot cheaper than buying one from the vehicle hire company.

What is more you can buy annual policies if you are going to be renting a car for more than once a year (or if you are renting for two or more weeks it works cheaper usually).

Just make sure when you collect the car you state to their representative that you don’t want their excess insurance as you have your own and take a print off of the poilcy with you in case you need to make a claim.

Some car hire company staff are under a great deal of pressure to seel their insurance products, you have to decline if you have saved money and bought in advance. I bought a new microwave in England last month. It cost £49?and the person at the check out was rather insistent I bought their insurance in case it went wrong. £49 microwaves are part of out “throwaway” society, but expensive cars are not, so you must make sure you are properly insured.

Incoming search terms for the article:

• car hire excess insurance

Following on from the item on this blog yesterday “Car hire companies will have to be more upfront about extra charges” which referred to the article in the Daily Mail this week “Crackdowns over hidden car hire charges will protect travellers on holiday abroad”, “ComparecarhireUK’s” Travel news has published the following:-

“Car hire firms warned about hidden charges”

Regulations could soon be in place to force car hire firms to be more careful about landing their customers with a variety of hidden costs. The number of complaints from rental firm customers rocketed in the first half of 2011 by 37 per cent, compared to the first half of 2009, according to the UK European Consumer Centre. Complaints ranged from being charged for repairs after an accident which never happened, to finding out unwanted insurance had to be paid for.

The Office of Fair Trading has said that it is concerned about the manner in which excess insurance is sold to customers. The watchdog has produced a report in which it points out that car rental customers arriving at airports are often tired after the journey and not in the best frame of mind to deal with the intricacies of the rental contract.

Regulators could soon come down hard on companies which are not completely transparent with their car hire deals. British Vehicle Rental Association representative, Toby Poston, defended the way in which hire companies sold their excess insurance. He said it was not a hard-sell to remind customers when they collect their vehicles that not taking out insurance could result in a hefty bill if the car is damaged.

He added that the price of buying insurance at a collection point was no more expensive than the cover offered under a normal policy. He went on to say that excess waiver insurance also means peace of mind for the renter.

Source: comparecarhire.co.uk

In many other countries including the UK and much of Europe, the rental car’s hire price should include some components of insurance.

‘In the price’ insurance for a car hire
Typically car rental insurance covers two forms of risk through two types of insurance:
• third party liability – to financially cover claims from other parties that have suffered personal injury or damage to their property;
• collision damage waiver (CDW) – to offer financial protection against claims from the car hire company arising from any damage the hire car may have sustained while you have it on hire.

In some countries, the ‘in the price’ insurance may only include third party liability. In others it may also provide a basic form of CDW.

Limitations of ‘in the price’ insurance

It may be advisable to check the insurance for car hire that is part of the rental cost as:
• the rental company’s policy may contain a large excess of between £500 and £1600 – that amount could be charged to your credit card following an accident as your contribution to the insurance claim costs;
• the CDW may exclude several important areas of the vehicle from its cover notably the wheels, tyres, windows, roof and undercarriage.
If you find these to be the case, you may decide that you are not entirely comfortable with the large financial risk presented. If so, you may wish to consider additional insurance to cover these ‘gaps’.

Additional insurance protection

The car hire company may offer you something they call ‘top-up cover’ or possibly ‘Super-CDW’. This is essentially additional insurance, which means they will reduce or remove the excess. It is also possible that they will remove the ‘exclusions’ and cover all areas of the vehicle.

An alternative source for this protection is the specialist providers of rental car insurance that you can find on the Internet. They offer a product typically called ‘excess insurance’ which will pay you back any sums you need to pay the rental company for excess or damage to excluded areas following an accident.

The policies provided by the specialists are typically cheaper that the ‘top-up’ insurance offered by the rental companies and they may also offer superior cover.

Finding out more
Web sites of the specialist providers of insurance for a car hire typically contain full details of their products. Looking at one of their sites may be time well spent as it may be able to save you money. Pay a visit to www.insurance4carrental.com to see insurance companies advertising car hire excess insurance, motorhome hire excess insurance and van hire excess insurance.

According to the news report, mystery shoppers found that half of car hire firms do not have a customer support centre or a 24 hour point of contact. Around 38 percent of companies would not allow bookings to be changed online and complaints about the industry are said to have increased 30 percent. “There has been a worrying increase in the number of companies that are taking advantage of consumer trust and tarnishing the reputation of the car hire industry with their unscrupulous behaviour,” said Stuart Nassos, managing director of Holiday Autos.

“Holiday Autos is keen to help our regulator stamp out some of the malpractices which occur within the industry. The Code of Conduct we are working to create for brokers aims to regulate industry practices.” The code would look to set transparent pricing standard; ensure the customers understand terms and conditions; eliminate misleading advertising and create a faster response to complaints.

However despite the dubious operation behind some businesses, the ‘Car Hire Uncovered’ report found that 23 percent of consumers would book car hire through a company they had never heard of if the price was cheaper than competitors and 70 percent would not check if the company had a 24 hour support service.

Furthermore, the price-driven spend meant that only five percent of respondents considered customer service to be important, although 10 percent had reported they had a bad experience last year and complaints in the sector have increased 30 percent. Less than a third (23 percent) cared about the reputation of the company they booked through.

Read the Holiday Autos Car Hire Uncovered lifting the bonnet on car hire HERE

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