Bettersafe

[Macca80]

Has anyone used Bettersafe for their additional car insurance before.

Appears to offer CDW, theft waiver and supplementary liability insurance

[Dinglebert]

What insurance is that that you are wanting to supplement?

If you say are taking a "free" car hire from the likes of Thomson and looking to purchase you insurance separate from the car hire, the this may be fraut with hazzards. Any accident will have to be paid by you direct to the car hire people and then claimed back from Bettersafe.

If on the other hand you are looking say to add tyre/windscreen/key cover then the Bettersafe insurance is selling you things which the car hire insurance already covers.

[Macca80]

Originally Posted by Dinglebert

What insurance is that that you are wanting to supplement?

If you say are taking a "free" car hire from the likes of Thomson and looking to purchase you insurance separate from the car hire, the this may be fraut with hazzards. Any accident will have to be paid by you direct to the car hire people and then claimed back from Bettersafe.

If on the other hand you are looking say to add tyre/windscreen/key cover then the Bettersafe insurance is selling you things which the car hire insurance already covers.

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We have the "free" car which we were not going to pick up however a friend has recently used Bettersafe to insure the free car. They had no problems but didn't need to claim

We have already booked another car with adequate insurance but the Bettersafe option would be cheaper. As you've said it may have its problems if trying to claim

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Loads of threads on here about these Policies. Pops up about once a fortnight or so.
99% of us on here wouldn't touch them, me included!
Far too many variables and clauses for me, also some companies want you to pay it all up front and claim back. How many of us can put a new car on their credit card?

[sdrfish]

If its a smaller amount I.e £2000 then that would come off your credit card and when you get home you then claim that back. If it is a larger amount i.e the car got wrote off what would then happen is the insurance company in this case bettersafe would liaise with the hire car company directly thus you would not have to pay anything. }

Make sure any policy you do get has at least $100k CDW and $1million in SLI. (better safe provide this level)

I have talked to alamo on the phone about this they are happy liaise with your insurance directly if you have a policy like this. Just remember if you have a bump with someone state side the police must be called to attend so you can get report/ref number which will be required when you claim (that would be the same though even if you got insurance with alamo direct). The only reason I can see they can decline your claim is if you are in breach of the hire car terms and conditions i.e drink drive.

To this date I have seen no horror stories in the media etc that show these policies always refuse claims unless someone else can show me otherwise.

[Macca80]

Originally Posted by sdrfish

If its a smaller amount I.e £2000 then that would come off your credit card and when you get home you then claim that back. If it is a larger amount i.e the car got wrote off what would then happen is the insurance company in this case bettersafe would liaise with the hire car company directly thus you would not have to pay anything. }

Make sure any policy you do get has at least $100k CDW and $1million in SLI. (better safe provide this level)

I have talked to alamo on the phone about this they are happy liaise with your insurance directly if you have a policy like this. Just remember if you have a bump with someone state side the police must be called to attend so you can get report/ref number which will be required when you claim (that would be the same though even if you got insurance with alamo direct). The only reason I can see they can decline your claim is if you are in breach of the hire car terms and conditions i.e drink drive.

To this date I have seen no horror stories in the media etc that show these policies always refuse claims unless someone else can show me otherwise.

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This is what my friend had said. Decisions decisions. I'll have a think and decide what to do.

[PPM]

It's risk and reward.
Take my example.
Driving back from KSC in pouring rain in our Alamo rental car, we hit a submerged pothole and basically tore off one side of the front suspension. We had Alamo "insurance" . They actually self insure, so there is no insurance company involved.
I made one call to Alamo. They said they would send out a recovery truck. I expected to be taken back to the depot in the truck with the car on the back, and sort it all out there.
What happened was the truck appeared just over an hour later, c/w a replacement car of the same type. We just moved our "stuff" into the new vehicle and signed the new agreement (after reading it of course ) , and drove off leaving the truck driver dragging the damaged car onto the truck with the winch. The chassis leg was bent too so I reckon it would never drive again.
The one phone call and the one signature was all I ever did on that incident, never heard anything more about it. I was more than happy with that as I was there to holiday not to chase about recovery, Alamo, insurance Company, replacement car etc.
This is why I keep choosing Alamos no hastle cover.

I'm interested in how this would have been handled and the outcome with independent insurance.
Perhaps surfing can advise?

Edit last line should read sdrfish ! Apologies for autocorrect.

[sdrfish]

Originally Posted by PPM

It's risk and reward.
Take my example.
Driving back from KSC in pouring rain in our Alamo rental car, we hit a submerged pothole and basically tore off one side of the front suspension. We had Alamo "insurance" . They actually self insure, so there is no insurance company involved.
I made one call to Alamo. They said they would send out a recovery truck. I expected to be taken back to the depot in the truck with the car on the back, and sort it all out there.
What happened was the truck appeared just over an hour later, c/w a replacement car of the same type. We just moved our "stuff" into the new vehicle and signed the new agreement (after reading it of course ) , and drove off leaving the truck driver dragging the damaged car onto the truck with the winch. The chassis leg was bent too so I reckon it would never drive again.
The one phone call and the one signature was all I ever did on that incident, never heard anything more about it. I was more than happy with that as I was there to holiday not to chase about recovery, Alamo, insurance Company, replacement car etc.
This is why I keep choosing Alamos no hastle cover.

I'm interested in how this would have been handled and the outcome with independent insurance.
Perhaps surfing can advise?

See more...

No different to any other insurance claim that your would make.. Either A the rental company contact your insurer and provides details on your behalf and the claim gets sorted from there. Or B you contact your insurer when back in the uk provide the relevant paperwork then they take over should it be a large claim to be settled directly with the hire company and or they refund what you have been charged.

If anyone can show me an examples of 3rd party insurance has refused to pay out please show me.

[PPM]

Originally Posted by sdrfish

No different to any other insurance claim that your would make.. Either A the rental company contact your insurer and provides details on your behalf and the claim gets sorted from there. Or B you contact your insurer when back in the uk provide the relevant paperwork then they take over should it be a large claim to be settled directly with the hire company and or they refund what you have been charged.

If anyone can show me an examples of 3rd party insurance has refused to pay out please show me.

See more...

The point I was making was on the actual mechanics of making this work realtime.
I made one call to Alamo .and all was fixed...no other contact. In my example above, at the time of the incident, a Sunday evening USA time, how would the third party insurance work? Who do I call for towing/recovery? Alamo, the U.K. based insurance co, a towing company? How do I get a replacement car, does the insurance company organise this, or Alamo at no further cost to myself? As the car would have been a write off is the insurance then cancelled for further use? (that is it pays for that incident but not for further coverage of a new vehicle as is the norm on UK policies)
I understand the claiming and refunding of costs etc, it's just the real time issues that I can't get my head around. At this time I know I have a one call solution, having used it. If the third part insurance can provide that and sort my onward journey within a couple hours with one or two calls and no upfront costs, then I would definetly consider it. I have yet to be convinced the this would be the case.

[sdrfish]

Originally Posted by PPM

The point I was making was on the actual mechanics of making this work realtime.
I made one call to Alamo .and all was fixed...no other contact. In my example above, at the time of the incident, a Sunday evening USA time, how would the third party insurance work? Who do I call for towing/recovery? Alamo, the U.K. based insurance co, a towing company? How do I get a replacement car, does the insurance company organise this, or Alamo at no further cost to myself? As the car would have been a write off is the insurance then cancelled for further use? (that is it pays for that incident but not for further coverage of a new vehicle as is the norm on UK policies)
I understand the claiming and refunding of costs etc, it's just the real time issues that I can't get my head around. At this time I know I have a one call solution, having used it. If the third part insurance can provide that and sort my onward journey within a couple hours with one or two calls and no upfront costs, then I would definetly consider it. I have yet to be convinced the this would be the case.

See more...

What you do is contact alamo should this happen. They will send a tow truck with replacement car. Alamo will replace the car you have with the same should this situation occur then you carry on and deal with this later. Like alamos policy the 3rd party policy transfers onto the new car up to the policy limit of $100k for CDW.

Worst case scenario is that if your worried that with the new replacement car you may not have enough cover (as you will be making a claim) you may have to get another policy quickly on the internet back at your hotel which is no big deal and still cheaper than alamos policy.

Now heres the thing say you wrote off the replacement car and you had a hire car policy say the 1st claim came out to $70k that would only leave $30K left on the insurance policy within that period. You would then become liable to pay what is over an above the 30k as you would have exceeded the policy limit. To be fair this is an extreme highly unlikely example but it does illustrate that getting a policy direct with a hire car company is not infallible.