Car Hire from Alicante Airport - Insurance

I have hired cars from most of the suppliers at the airport and I have never accepted any of their hiked up insurance costs.

Like yourselves I buy the annual excess insurance.

On one occasion Centauro did the damage scam to me but the excess insurance in the UK were excellent and paid out within the week but do make sure that you take pics and keep any paperwork to support your claim.

The bigger problem at the moment is the cost of hiring a car, have you taken any quotes yet ? Ridiculous.

Ken

If they show you the damage when you return the car then get all the paperwork from them detailing what damage they are charging you for as you’ll need it for your insurer & take photos. That should do them.

If as happens to some folks where they only find out they’ve been charged for damage after they return home then it can be harder to retrospectively get the proof needed for your insurer.  You’ll just have to be persistent and demand an invoice to prove cost of the damage. 

Having just made a claim on my Insurance4carhire annual policy I can confirm that it really is that simple, though it takes a while to get the paperwork required up together so make sure you keep everything provided by the rental company. They refunded in full with no deductions within a couple of days, even though the photos showed the charge was obviously excessive for the tiny amount of damage done.

One tip to avoid minor damage is to not park next to other vehicles if possible as the Spanish don't seem to care about opening their car door against yours. This caused three separate scratches and a small dent (the one that was charged for) during a two week period.  It's well worth walking the extra 50m from the far end of the car park to your destination to minimise the chances of this happening.

Annual excess insurance costs about £40, but Holiday Autos own excess insurance may be cheaper if you're only hiring for a couple of weeks.

Best rental company at Alicante in my experience is OK Rental, off airport but may well be quicker to take the short transfer and avoid queues in the terminal.  Centauro are very good in the terminal.  GoldCar are still shockers for making spurious extra charges but at least their cars have so many dents already on them and recorded in the paperwork that they'd be hard pressed to spot any new minor damage.

Of course rental rates are currently very high for the coming months with the expectation of high demand so the rental companies are charging high rates while they can.  My experience both before and during pandemania is that the cheapest rates appear a week or so before the pick up date. Might be different this year if tourists and holiday home owners do re-appear in large numbers, but I can't see that happening quickly.

We use Weiber and take out full cover. We like the fact that they do not take a ridiculous deposit off you. Never had any problems. That said the prices at the moment for car hire are extortionate with every car hire company.

Carol

The reason that they don't take a ridiculous deposit from you is because you have taken their full cover.

If, for instance, you said to them I have my own excess cover, as many of us do, then they would take or block a large amount to your credit card.

For me, that isn't a problem, paying their inflated full cover price certainly is.

That's me told. 😅

In a nice way I hope ? No offence intended.

Thanks for the info - very helpful! I often take the premium cover quoted on the holiday autos website, sometimes its only £3/day. But then they still seem to block a large amount on the credit card and offer even more insurance. How does that work? I've been caught out in the past, so we've effectively ended up with 4times the insurance!! a) the basic one with the booking which probably isnt worth the paper its written on b) the premium cover on the website c)the hire companies 'super' policy and d) our annual excess cover. Madness.

In reality you only need  a) and d) to be in place, and be prepared for them to hold a sum of €1400 ( or similar) on your credit card to ”use” if any damage needs to be repaired. They don’t actually take this money from your card when you pick up the car, you have basically given them permission to use your card to pay for any damage that they deem to be your fault. You can then claim this back via d)