warning to all on car rental in oz

fishbuff1 SG

i just saw on the news that the car rentals here are cheating their clients when their cars are involved either in minor accident or slight damaged by flood. big names like avis, europcar, hertz etc are named in this investigation. yes, customers were told that the cars were insured when they signed up but do take note most are still fall short and fell into their scams. so beware!

redDUST SG

i just think that it is important to pay for additional charges for insurance agst accidents, etc.

when i first landed last nov, i rented an aurion from hertz for 2.5 weeks and pay additional insurance coverage. my excess is only $500. i drove with a peace of mind.

when there, i overheard a lady customer on the next counter arguing over a charge of over A$3.4k because of a minor accident. it's exhorbitant but she choose not to pay for insurance coverage. she tried to argue her way out but at the end of the day, she signed her name of the dotted line, which means that she agrees to the terms and conditions and will be liable regardless.

last year, i rented a suv with no additional insurance coverage and drove to some national parks in australia. i got into some minor damages on the outback, including a busted tyre. i called the car rental, and the lady told me to just fix it before i return and not mentioned anything upon return. so, i did just that and no worries at all. sure it costs me a couple of hundred bucks fixing the damages but it could have been much more if i were to return a slightly damaged car.

lostintransition SG

i agree...even though the excess insurance coverage might cost quite abit...unless you can easily afford $3000+ to pay for the excess in the event anything goes wrong...otherwise, i'd also recommend to top up excess coverage.

car rental will typically deduct the full amount of excess upfront regardless of the kind of damage to the car...they'd tell you that they'll refund any excess if the repair costs less than the excess but the truth is...there's just no motivation at all for the car repair workshop or car rental firm to refund you any money...so most of the time, you'll end up paying the full excess amount even for a small dent.

and some people think that their travel insurance already has some coverage for the excess....but again, truth being, claiming from your own travel insurance will require proper and sufficient documentation from the overseas car rental firm and repair workshop....but most of the time, they have no reason to go through the trouble to help facilitate your claims since they've already received payment from you. i've heard of some who incurred excess charges but didn't manage to claim from their own travel insurance 'cos the documentation from the car rental/repair workshop are just so tardy.