When you hire a car, one of the things that you may need to consider is whether or not you need car hire excess cover. This is because the Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) cover normally provided by the car hire companies, either included in the deal or sold separately, may not give you 100% protection.

Collision damage waiver cover will generally carry an excess and may often also exclude certain parts of the car like the windows, the tyres and the under body from cover. This means that if one of these parts is damaged, it would be your responsibility to fund the repairs.

The excess is a mechanism used by insurance providers to help keep premium costs down. If you agree to share the risk and pay part of any claim they can offer lower premiums. Car hire excess is no different.

The excess you may be required to pay can be a fairly substantial amount. In the UK for example it can range from £500 to £1600 so it is not surprising that some people prefer to take out additional car hire excess cover to insure themselves against this risk.

Excess cover bought from the car hire companies may be relatively expensive and may still leave you liable to pay for any damage done to those ‘excluded’ parts of the car. This is typically not the case with car hire excess cover bought online from car hire specialist insurance providers.

Not only do their products typically tend to be cheaper but they also may include cover for the windows, tyres etc in their cover.

The excess insurance provided by the specialists can generally be bought on a daily or an annual basis. Daily cover is normally priced as a cost per day for each day of your rental. Annual cover is similar to any other form of annual insurance policy. It is held by you as the policy-older and will allow you to rent a car on a number of occasions during the period of its validity.

If you rent a car regularly, an annual policy may be a very economical way of providing yourself with car hire excess cover

There may be some terms and conditions regarding the types of vehicle that can be hired. For most rentals though this should pose no problems since it tends to be the more exotic types of car such as sports or vintage models, motor homes, motorbikes or commercial vehicles that are not covered.

Car hire excess insurance from the specialists can typically also provide you with a number of additional features including:

• cover if your baggage is stolen from a locked boot;

• lost or broken key replacement;

• personal accident cover;

• help if you are locked out of the car;

• benefit if your rental has to be cut short due to illness.

You typically can’t always buy annual cover from the car hire companies. It is available only from specialist insurance providers. Getting an online quote may be the first step towards some real car hire excess cover savings.