When we landed in the early hours at Heathrow yesterday morning I had to go and collect the hire car from Avis. I had selected the Peugeot 2008 as the 9 day car hire was a fairly reasonable 400 GBP. I was not expecting an upgrade leaving with a Mercedes A20 instead. I never end up with the car booked and I am going back maybe the last 6 or 7 car hire bookings.
When I was loading the suit cases into the boot I noticed a small dent on the boot lid which I mentioned to the Avis people at the time. I had paid the extra 370 GBP for full comprehensive insurance cover for just in case. This is more for peace of mind as otherwise the excess without the insurance is 2000 GBP. You would have to be kind of crazy to take a chance and skip the insurance because it is normally not your fault when an accident happens. 2000 GBP is a large chunk of change and this is not even a car you own so why take a chance?
The last crash I had was over 30 years ago and that was someone not stopping at an off ramp coming off the freeway so it was one of those moments where you only have time to choose what part of the car you are going to hit. I can recall it like yesterday after seeing the children sitting in the back seats and chose to ram the front of the car. Everyone was ok even though it was at speed and why having an advanced drivers license does help. In the past I used to get cheaper car insurance and need to ask next time if it still helps.
I was thinking that maybe the ding on the boot is going to be repaired using my fully comprehensive insurance and why they offered me this car as an upgrade. I am not complaining as all I wanted was a car with a decent boot size. The last car we hired on the last trip was also a Mercedes, but a sports convertible model which was the cheapest available. This was winter time and obviously they were struggling to hire it out. The only problem was a lack of boot space and we had to put the suit cases on the back seat. This was not a very practical car and why this time I went for the Peugeot 2008 instead, but still ended up with something else.
Having fully comprehensive insurance may sound like a waste of money but not really as paying 2000 GBP is the cost if something happens. About 8 years ago I was in Bordeaux for a few days and I never crashed the car, but it looked like somebody had crashed into the passenger door when parked at the hotel over night. It was not overly obvious as it was more on the bottom part and I did not notice the damage immediately. I thought it was the aero dynamics at the bottom of the door panel as the paint was intact.
At the time I was not worried as this was the first time I had taken the extra cover. When the car was dropped off the person checking the car was complaining and wanted me to sign some forms which I refused and just handed him the keys. He called his manager and confirmed everything was covered and not to worry. That could have been costly even though it was not my fault and why I pay the extras every time now.