Hawaii Rental Car Insurance - Should you Get One?

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Renting a car can be tricky business. You end up filling out miles of paperwork and signing your life away in order to essentially borrow a vehicle for a few days or a week. Whatever the case, most people are generally stumped when they are asked whether or not they want to pay for Car Rental insurance in Hawaii and in most other states. So do you need to purchase the coverage?

What Your Personal Policy Covers

Most auto insurance policies in the United States do extend your automobile insurance to cover you if you are driving a rental car. There are, however, stipulations to this extension.

The first thing to remember is that your automobile insurance policy will only extend coverage to your rental car if you have it. That means if you don't have comprehensive and collision coverage on your personal vehicle you won't have comprehensive and collision coverage on your rental car. Your Hawaii car rental insurance company won't allow you to take a car if you don't have proper coverage. If the car you drive at home is underinsured, you should consider taking the policy offered by the rental agency. They'll probably make you buy it anyway.

What Your Personal Policy does NOT Cover

The problem with most Hawaii car rental insurance agencies, as well as those in other states, is that the agents selling (or not selling) insurance for the rental car never point out what coverage you do NOT have on your own policy.

Your personal car insurance policy will pay for damages to the rental car – true. But what happens if you are in a major accident and the rental car needs a lot of repair work? Let's say the vehicle will be off the road for two weeks or more. The rental company will then expect you to pay for what is known as "loss of use," or the amount of time they can't rent the car because you damaged it.

Your personal policy won't pay for "loss of use" but if you purchase Hawaii car rental insurance the policy you get through the rental agency will provide coverage. That, right there, is a simple enough reason to always purchase rental insurance from the rental agency, or from another independent agent, instead of relying on your own.

Purchasing Hawaii car rental insurance may come with additional cost but it is nominal compared to what you would have to pay out of pocket if you damaged a rental vehicle badly enough to put it out of commission!

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