Short Term Car Insurance

If you are looking for a short term car insurance policy theres a good chance that you may not even need it…

Is car insurance for a temporary period of time required when renting an automobile?

The rental service will offer you some combination of liability insurance, personal effects coverage, accident insurance, and/or a loss damage waiver (more commonly known as LDW). If you have your own car and have the respective car insurance, you are most likely covered for each of these 4 insurances. As such, getting even one of them is likely a waste of money. You just have to make sure that you are using the car for recreational and not business use.

Below is a list of the 4 insurance types that the rental car company may offer you and why you probably don’t need them…

Liability coverage: The liability insurance that you already have pays for any damages, which you are found to be liable for.

Loss Damage Waiver (LDW): Collision & comprehensive insurance (if you have them on your car), makes this coverage superfluous. Your collision insurance pays for damages to your auto regardless of who is at fault in an accident. Comprehensive insurance protects you from damage or loss caused by everything from the weather to burglary.

Personal accident insurance or accident coverage: If you already have either Personal Injury Protection, Medical Payments Coverage, or health insurance, you can skip on this additional insurance.

Personal effects coverage: Rental car companies offer this type of coverage for stolen items. However, it is very likely that your homeowners or renters insurance already covers items that are stolen not just inside the house, but outside of it as well.

To be 100% safe, you should try calling your house and car insurance provider so that you are sure that they both will carryover their coverage to the rental car. You may get some form of coverage from your credit card if you use it to pay for the rental.

What if you are borrowing a car?

If you have your own car insurance, you needn’t worry. Your own auto insurance transfers over. Additionally, the lenders car insurance policy will transfer to you. But what happens if you want to borrow a car and don’t have auto insurance for yourself?

If you want to borrow somebody’s car and do not have you car insurance, the main thing, which can hurt you, is lack of liability coverage. Yes, the lenders liability protection will cover you when you borrow their car. But if their liability coverage is not enough, you are liable for any amount, which is not covered by the lenders liability insurance. You can easily prevent this from happening by purchasing a cheap nonowners policy. As always, if you are innocent in an accident, the other person will pay for the cost to repair the lenders vehicle (although this isn’t the case in some states).

But whose going to pay for damages done to the car that was given to you? The owner of the car will pay if they have comprehensive and/or collision coverage. Or you may pay if you have these two coverages.