Jerzy:
“I recently purchased Tripcover for a rental car hire.
After picking up the car, I realised that the car had existing damage that I had not reported on the Damage Form that I signed.
I am concerned that I may have to pay the excess to Budget and put in a claim if they try to say the damage occurred during my rental period.
I have been looking over your claim form in case I need to complete it.
Can you please tell me what you mean by Police or Accident report and what you would require for this type of damage so that I can be prepared if Budget charge me the excess for this damage.”

Tripcover Team Member:
The police report is only needed if it was a significant accident Kate.
This is a common trick the car rental companies can play with their customers.
Always pays to walk around the car and video it or take a few pics.

Don’t let the car rental companies get you angry anymore fix the excess insurance problem using Tripcover!

Karl: “As I am in the process of taking out a policy, I’m somewhat puzzled by the fact that one of your competitors “I Cover” provides supposedly similar cover as yours but the cost is less than half. How can this be?

Furthermore their policy also covers a number of other benefits.

Thanking you.”

 

Tripcover’s Reply
“Hi Carl, but they cannot say and do not say that they cover windscreens, undercarriage, tyres, lights and single vehicle accidents in their PDS because they don’t generally as they only cover what the standard

excess or CDW that the car rental companies offer.

But it is a free market, you can buy travel insurance which is what they offer or you can buy our specialist car rental excess cover. Up to you.”

PS Karl’s reply was as follows:
“Many thanks.

This would be a great brief for a PR campaign for Tripcover. For as a consumer, it can be very confusing out there.

My initial suspicion was based on the value for price/offering, which prompted me to investigate further, and the unclear answers I got back from them.

Thank you for getting back to me, so I can now take out a Tripcover policy, as well as passing on the information to family, friends and contacts.

Best wishes
Karl

For more on this go to:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2082042

Rental car giant Hertz has been forced to refund hundreds of aggrieved customers amounts totalling $395,000 because it had charged them for damage they did not cause.

Following an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigation, Hertz admitted that between November 2013 and August last year it had incorrectly charged customers for causing damage to a rental car that was in fact pre-existing………..

>Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/hertz-to-refund-hundreds-of-customers-it-falsely-accused-of-damaging-rental-cars-20160405-gnymfe.html#ixzz450TGsl46
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

This is a great sign for us as a giant like Allianz, entering this category that my brother Steve and I created in Australia, verifies that this means business and our category is not likely to go away anytime soon.

And what is this category? Well, anyone that has ever rented a car will know what I am talking about. You know, you get to the car rental desk and they ask you if you want to take out their CDW or Collision Damage Waiver (it is basically their own insurance that
they manage themselves only they can’t call it insurance).

Now this CDW can cost as much as the rental car itself or even more, per day and so can double your rental costs.  The car rental insurance policy that Tripcover sells is around $9 per day. Although the policy that Allianz sells is the exact same product, supplied by Allianz Global Assistance, they have a higher rate due to it covering 21 to 75 year olds. We have split our age range so that you can by our policy for either 25 to 75 year olds or 21 to 24 year olds and it is considerably cheaper.

About the Car Rental Excess Insurance Category
With present sales of around $10M in Australia and representing around 3% of the car rental insurance market, we estimate that the category will be worth some $38M by 2020 and represent around 8 to 10% of the car rental insurance market place, by then.
Car rental excess insurance has been going in Australia since the start of 2012, for over 4 years now and we see it becoming main stream by 2020.

Latest ProductReview from Brad one of Tripcover’s Customers
Hiring vehicles when driving in unfamiliar areas as well as being worried about even slight damage such as carpark door dents, bumper / undercarriage damage & windscreens, is always a concern. However, Tripcover gave us peace of mind. Beforehand I had a query re the policy’s T & C’s & Des personally responded within a day.

Great service at a fraction of the car rental company’s excess reduction (which also does not cover the extent of damage that is covered by the Tripcover policy). And it’s backed by Allianz should a claim be made. We look forward to using your rental vehicle insurance service again in the future.

But if you really want to get your converts and advocates for your company you are going to need the last 2 rules of thumb which are Partnership and Advice.

“Partnership and advice are the most advanced levels of customer expectation. If you consistently meet these expectations, you will have successfully transformed prospects into advocates”