Car Rental Insurance Overview: Supplemental Liability Insurance

Introduction

When you are preparing for a trip -- whether it’s for vacation or business -- you may have found yourself contemplating whether you need car rental insurance when you rent a car. In this regard you may have found yourself debating the pros and cons of car rental insurance.

In order to be more thoughtful in the process of trying to decide whether or not you car rental insurance is right for you, you need to understand the basic terms associated with car rental insurance. To this end, one term that commonly is associated with car rental insurance is supplemental liability insurance. This article provides to you a general overview of what supplemental liability insurance is all about.

The Definition of Supplemental Liability Insurance

Supplemental liability insurance is additional coverage above and beyond more basic insurance coverage. For example, if you have an individual car insurance policy and you end up renting a car and obtain car rental insurance in that process … the car rental insurance is considered to be supplemental liability insurance. The car insurance provides you supplemental insurance above and beyond the coverage that is provided to you in your individual car insurance policy.

There are, of course, other types of supplemental liability insurance policies on the market today. However, for the purposes of this article, the focus will be on the car rental insurance.

Supplemental Liability Insurance and Car Rental Insurance: Is It Necessary?

The key question that you will be asking yourself when you are considering obtaining car rental insurance is: Do I really need it? If you have car insurance, if you’ve got an individual policy of car insurance -- which you should have if you are a driver -- the reality is that you probably do not need car rental insurance.

When all is said and done, through your individual policy of car insurance you likely will have enough car insurance protection afforded to you when it comes to renting a car.

Summary

In the final analysis, you need to keep in mind that car rental insurance is an expensive proposition. Proportionally speaking, car rental insurance (considering the amount of coverage that you actually obtain and the amount of time that it will be in force and effect) is a costly addition to your rental car bill.

Absent a truly compelling reason to obtain car rental insurance (for example, you already have had claims on your individual car insurance policy and want to avoid any additional ones) there may not be a good reason to spend the additional money needed to obtain a policy of car rental insurance when you are renting a car.