Hire a car or use your own?

Many of us choose to swap the plane for a much more familiar form of transport for a holiday abroad; the motorcar. However, if you want to experience the joy of the open road, with the summer breeze rushing through your hair, then you need to be sure your insurance is in order. By learning a few little known facts you could save yourself a lot of hassle and a lot of money. Here are some top insurance tips for driving abroad.

Hire Cars – When hiring a car to drive abroad the car will almost always come with insurance, but that will most probably be third party insurance only. This means that if you have an accident, and it’s deemed to be your fault, you could face a hefty repair bill for all vehicles involved. Make sure you check out the level of insurance provided by the hire company before you take control of the car, preferably before you’ve even left home to go on holiday. If it is third party then have a look on the internet for companies which offer special cover for hire vehicles, effectively this cover will upgrade any insurance which is included in the car hire to fully comprehensive.

Your Car – It’s important when driving your car abroad to make sure that your insurance broker has covered you to drive abroad. If you’re not covered you’ll need to notify them of your travel dates and possibly pay a fee. If you are covered you may still need to notify your insurance company of your travel dates as you might be limited to the number of days you’re covered abroad and they’ll need to know when you’re away. If you’re using a comparison site when buying your insurance then you can often select the need to be covered for trips abroad. Kwik Fit Insurance offer 60 days cover abroad when you take out a car insurance policy from their site, which should be enough to cover all of your holidays. Be careful also that you’re not breaking the law without realising it; things like speed camera detectors might be legal in the UK, but travel across the channel to France and the same detector will cost you thousands of Euros in fines if you’re caught with it in the car, even if you’re not using it. So make sure you know the law when taking your own car abroad, and with all that done, enjoy the sun!

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