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John Cletheroe's
USA and Canada Holiday Hints |
This insurance covers your liability should you injure someone or cause property damage while driving. The insurance provided by car rental companies gives some cover for this liability, but only for a very low amount set by the state. In Florida this is only $20,000, in some other states up to $50,000. Top-Up insurance raises the amount to a more realistic amount of $1 million.
Some years ago the major car rental companies had much higher rates of third-party cover than small local companies. It was then vital to obtain the appropriate Top-Up policy to match the car rental company's level of cover. These days all the car rental companies seem to have reduced the amount of their third-party cover down to the lower level, requiring everyone to now purchase the more expensive Top-Up policy. If the Top-Up Insurance and car rental company's third-party cover figures don't match then the Top-Up Insurance is invalid.
Top-Up insurance also provides you with compensation should you be involved in an incident with a non-insured or under-insured motorist.
EP (Extra Protection or Extended Protection) offers the same cover as Top-Up Insurance, but is purchased directly from the car rental company in the USA or Canada. If you have Top-Up Insurance then you don't need EP.
I think that LIS (Liability Insurance Supplement) is another name for EP.
Purchasing Top-Up Insurance in advance in Britain is usually considerably less expensive than buying EP from the car rental company in the USA or Canada.
The cost of EP purchased from Alamo in the USA was $12.99 per day as at Dec-98.
Any car insurance held in Britain does not apply for driving in the USA or Canada and so cannot be used instead of Top-Up Insurance or EP.
One UK company offering Top-Up Insurance for car rentals in the USA and Canada is Extra Sure Travel Insurances Ltd, 16 St Helen's Place, London EC3A 6DP, telephone number 0171-480-6871 or 0171-488-9341. There are other companies.
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EMail me Please note that I am not in the car rental business or the travel trade and I cannot provide any more information on car rental other than that presented here. Nor can I process any requests for quotations or reservations for car rental - these should be directed to car rental companies or travel agents.
Most recently modified 21-Jul-02