Oh boy this has been a huge pain in my buttocks.

We are now car free and are going to rent a car a few times per year when we really need one.

We do not have car insurance because we do not have a car.

I have found out that most credit card companies insurance is "secondary" insurance. That means that you must have some other type of primary insurance before their coverage kicks in. Im afraid that most people out there renting cars do not know that. Since we do not have regular car insurance that does not do us any good.

Diners club has primary insurance but the annual fee would be about $130 for my wife and I....hardly a good deal.

The rental car comanies car insurance is about $16 a day. So that is $240 a day if we rented 15 times per year. That is for collision and we would also need liability which is even more.

I have done several internet searches and found out about something called "non owners" insurance. I called every company in town and noone sells it. Most car insurance companies told me they would look into it but they never called back. I think they guess I am poor because I do not have a car.

What do you guys do?

https://www.iii.org/media/updates/press.740426/

According to this site it apparently costs about $16 to $33 per day to get collision insurance and additional liability insurance above the state-required minimum. The rental company makes sure you're always insured to the minimum required by law (in liability insurance) when you rent a car.

Is this true? My understanding is that the secondary insurance provided by credit card companies only kicks in if you don't have any other insurance to cover it. In other words, if you have car insurance and they accept the claim then you're credit card insurance doesn't help you, but if your car insurance denies the claim (or if you don't have any car insurance) then you're credit card insurance covers it. It is secondary (ie it comes after any other insurance you have is exhausted). At least that's the way it seemed last time I read the agreement.

I'll take another look at one of my actual agreements when I get home and post back, but I'm pretty sure that's the way it usually is. That's the way it is with "secondary" medical insurance. For example, if you are insured through your employer then your family usually gets secondary insurance. If you wife is also insured through her employer then your insurance only kicks in for her if her own insurance won't cover it. However, if your wife doesn't have any of her own insurance then she is still insured under you; There is nothing to be secondary to.

Have you considered car sharing services like zipcar or flexcar? I believe insurance is included with them. Zipcar seems to be a ripoff, but flexcar seems reasonably priced if you need a car. I keep going back and forth over whether I should sign up for Flexcar. It would be good to have in an emergency, but why pay the annual fee if I'm never going to use it (and I've never needed to rent a car near my home since I've been car free).

That is true. Secondary insurance means that you MUST have some type of primary insurance. Good thing you found out before you were in a wreck.

I live in missouri and I dont think we have those car sharing services.

I need a car in las vegas next week and other then that I need one about 4-5 times per year when I visit family in another part of the state.

I get the deluxe extra insurance package with rental cars. It increases the cost a lot.

It would be nice if car insurance weren't tied so closely to vehicle ownership, but that's the system that's evolved in the U.S.

I think I will just buy the collison, liability and leave the medical and property ones.

I have medical insurance and if my stuff gets stolen out of the car then whoop de doo.....my bike will not be in there.

I don't believe you. This description of benefits for any visa signature card says:
https://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/c...to_rental.html

Of course, you have to refer to the actual agreement for your card to know for sure, but I believe that most credit card rental insurance applies to people without car insurance.

Yes you do need to read the fine print. CDW only covers collision damage to the car; it does not provide coverage for injury of anyone or damage to anything inside or outside the rental vehicle.
. https://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/b..._personal.html

Yes, which is itself a complicated issue that I haven't sorted out for myself. Some states require that liability insurance be included in the price of every rental regardless of whether or not you have your own insurance (although if you ask, the rental company may still try to sell you additional liability coverage over the minimum mandated by law), some states pin the liability on the rental company (and so they always include liability insurance in the price of the rental), some states require the rental company to check that you have liability coverage before renting you the car (but a customer without liability coverage might be such a rare occurance that they fail to do so); You may be insured for liability by renter's insurance, homeowner's insurance, accident insurance (from your CC company), or uninsured/underinsured insurance held by the rental company. You may be insured for liability by one of these insurances, but it still may be illegal for you to drive, in which case your primary concern is not being insured in the case of an accident, but getting in trouble with the police. I'm not sure how police check for proper insurance on a rental, but it probably varies by state.

Has anyone figured this part out? Most credit card companies don't offer liability insurance for rental cars at all, not even secondary.

I have Flexcar which insures me when driving one of their cars. Other than that I never, never drive someone else's car as that would expose me to significant liability.

You are on the right track with the non-owner insurance policy. Try calling one the nation wide insurers. I suspect your first attempt reached lazy small town brokers who didn't what to deal with such an "exotic" request.

Also look into Umbrella insurance. It's designed to be secondary to auto insurance but might work for your situation.

Im not trying to lie to anyone. That is the way I understand it from what I have read and what the person I talked to from Chase (our credit card company) told me.

I HOPE I am wrong because that would save me a couple hundred dollars.

Don't listen to anyone you talk to at the credit card company. 99% of them are massive idiots. Dig out your original credit card agreement (along with any amendments they may have sent you over the years) and read it. If you don't have it then call the credit card company, ask them to send you another copy of the agreement, and pray that they send you the right one.

If your particular credit card doesn't cover you (an otherwise uninsured driver) for collision then get another credit card. Most, if not all, credit cards offering rental coverage cover uninsured drivers for collision.

...Then there is the issue of liability insurance. What state do you live in? New York apparently requires the legal amount of liability insurance to always be included in the rental price of the car (regardless of whether or not you have your own coverage): https://www.oag.state.ny.us/consumer/...to_rental.html. I'm not sure about my own state (Maryland) and I haven't been able to find a comprehensive source for this information on all states.

I think I am going to purchase the $1,000,000 liability coverage from the rental car insurance.

You can never have enough liability when driving a 3000 pound cage at 70 mph.

Thats a problem. The chase card is the only one that is not in credit card hell. Cut up, burned, buried and forgotten.

I agree with you 100% that credit card company folks are idiots. The biggest problem with this is having to deal with companies that I feel are 100% evil.

I personally wouldn't do that. Most people on the road have their own insurance (auto and medical). You probably have your own medical insurance. Unless you run over an uninsured bum I think you'll have a pretty hard time racking up $1M of liability (and even then it's possible you might get some coverage from your credit card company).

But that's just me personally. I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an actuary, I'm not an insurance professional. I'm just some guy on the bike forum.

My wife was told in vet school that you should never, ever have under 1 million dollars worth of liability insurance on your car.

I agree. People sue etc.

Liblility insurance is cheap considering the hell your life would become without proper coverage.

IMO your primary concern should be that you may find yourself uninsured and liable for the costs of a catastrophic injury or damage incurred while operating the rental vehicle. Of course if you have nothing of value to lose, maybe that isn't such a problem.

Yeah, but that's assuming you drive every day like most people do. If you only drive 15 days out of the year then your chances of getting into an accident are lowered by a factor of 15/365=0.04. Whatever the price of auto liability is, if it is a reasonable price for an average individual then it's 25 times higher than reasonable for you.

I mean, would you buy the insurance if you were renting one day a year? One hour a year?

If you are insured, but due to some legal loop hole not street legal then why would your primary concern be that you may find yourself uninsured?

Is this supposed to be yet another veiled insult about car free people being hippies? Back on ignore you go.

Just because the other guy has insurance doesn't get you off the hook for your own liability if the incident is considered your fault. And the other guy's insurance company will make it their business to get you found at fault. Who do think is going to pay for your legal representation?

You are right. You are not a lawyer, you are not an actuary, you are not an insurance professional. You are just some guy on the bike forum who can't stand to have his hot air rhetorical ballons punctured by barbs of reality.

Too bad for someone else if you cause an accident, eh? Is your trust fund protected from such possibilities?

we were having a decent conversation.

A nice conversation about liability where at least one of the parties doesn't know diddley about the subject and is giving all sorts of advice that could prove to be financially ruinous for anyone dingy enough to follow it.

I did not agree with his advice either but I listened and did not make fun of him. I said why I disagreed and went from there.

That is the difference between me and you.

And I didn't make fun of him either. He made a fool of himself; and for toppers got all whiney and pizzy about facing up to the fact his dangerous (and ignorant) advice about auto liability may only be good for somebody with no concerns about losing anything of real monetary value. If he thinks that only applies to dippy hippies, that's his problem.

Insurance of any type, is intended for that one-in-a-million chance, that you might be in a collision and sued. There are people who drive every day for decades, and pay that insurance every year, and never use it, there are people who get behind the wheel the first time, and are in a collision and sued. People who own cars, and drive every day, pay considerably more then $15 a year, in fact my last renewal for insurance has $1,000,000 liability and a premium of over $500 a year, just for liability.

Now insurance companies, might insure just about anything, you just need to word it right, at $15 per rental, if I were renting more then 34 times, I would consider going to an insurance company, and buying just the liability insurance, no collision, no comprehensive, just liability.