With most personal auto policies, your liability and physical damage coverage will extend to a car that you rent. If you have a claim while driving the rental car, you can file a claim as you normally would with one of your own cars. This coverage not only applies to traditional rental agencies, but to most peer to peer services such as Turo.
Exceptions
There are some common exceptions to consider when renting a vehicle.
- Most policies won’t cover moving trucks or vehicles over a certain weight.
- If you only carry liability on your cars or on the car that the rental car is replacing, most policies won’t provide physical damage coverage to the rental car
- Most policies won’t cover a rental car outside the US or Canada. However, often times an umbrella policy will provide some coverage.
- Many personal auto policies won’t cover the rental agency’s loss of revenue as a result of not being able to rent the car while it is being fixed.
Are there any advantages to buying the rental car coverage?
If you do decide to buy the insurance from the rental car agency and have a physical damage claim (accident, rock to the windshield, etc), you have the luxury of walking away without much hassle. More importantly, since your insurance carrier won’t pay out for the claim, it won’t be assigned to your loss history and won’t affect your insurance rates.