Does My Auto Insurance Cover Me While I’m Renting a Vehicle?

Very often we will get the question from clients about whether their auto insurance policy will provide coverage for them while they are in a rental vehicle. I generally always suggest that you have a specific conversation with your agent if there’s anything unique about the situation. The following is an explanation as relates to renting a car if you have a Florida personal automobile insurance policy.

But for the purposes of this conversation, we are going to assume that you are renting a private passenger type vehicle of a similar size and weight to the vehicle that you insure on your Florida auto policy. We are going to assume that the vehicle is rented for a period of approximately 20 days or less. Again, the limits on rental term if any can vary from one company to the next. And we are going to assume that the rental car is rented within the United States, its territories, or Canada. Most insurance policies will consider that the coverage territory within your policy but again each policy can vary.

So given those assumptions, the response is yes, your auto insurance policy will generally carry over to a rental car for physical damage to the rental car and for liability protection while driving the rental, so long as the driver of the rental car is an insured as defined by the Florida auto policy. Some important considerations to keep in mind include the fact that the deductibles which apply to your auto policy will typically be the deductibles that apply to the rental vehicle. So essentially, the coverage carries over as if the rental car were your own vehicle.

Some argument can be made depending on a person’s comfort level about the benefit of purchasing the damage waiver from the rental car company. The main or one of the main benefits of doing so is that the damage waiver will often not include the requirement for you to pay a deductible for damage so long as the damage occurs on a paved surface or road.

So whereas your own policy would require you to submit a claim to your insurance which would go on your claim history and to pay your deductible, whatever that may be, it’s possible that with the purchase of the damage waiver from the rental car company not only would you save yourself the deductible you would also potentially not have the incident reported to your auto insurance company.

Keeping this in mind when you rent a vehicle, you can have in general the peace of mind that in most circumstances, given the assumptions above, your auto policy will carry over to the rental car. There are state specific coverage territory components related to Personal Injury Coverage which can be relevant as well when outside the state of Florida but which would likely best discussed in the context of a more detail conversation with your agent given your specific situation.

An important additional caveat which may apply to some people is that if you don’t have physical damage coverage on any vehicle on your policy, you will not typically have physical damage coverage for a rental car. And in that situation, I would advise that you purchase the insurance for damage from the rental car company or add physical damage coverage to at least one of the vehicles on your policy.

If you have any specific questions about your policy or the topic in general, we would be more than happy to discuss those with you and help however we can.

The above description provides a brief overview of the terms and phrases used within the insurance industry. These definitions are not applicable in all states or for all insurance and financial products. This is not an insurance contract. Other terms, conditions and exclusions apply. Please read your official policy for full details about coverages. These definitions do not alter or modify the terms of any insurance contract. If there is any conflict between these definitions and the provisions of the applicable insurance policy, the terms of the policy control.