Other Car Rental Programs (ie. Alamo, Enterprise) - Europcar in Australia

Has anybody had any experience with hiring a car with Europcar in Australia?

It seems LDW is mandatory in Australia? If I have personal liability insurance from my home country, would this be sufficient protection? :confused:

I have a reasonable amount of experience hiring a car from Europcar in Australia, most recently in Darwin, a couple of months ago, also in Melbourne. Hiring an Audi A6 from Europcar at OOL next month for 4 days.

LDW is mandatory in Australia - you cannot hire/rent a car without it, nor can you opt out. You are also automatically covered for damage to third party persons and property (other cars, etc).

However, there is a large excess/deductible - Europcar's is $3,850 for standard cars and $5,500 for prestige cars (Audi) and 4WD's. Up to approx. 20% higher from airports (% airport fee generally applies to excess too).

To reduce this excess, you pay excess reduction (I think Europcar call this LDW, which it technically isn't), which is approx. $25 - $50 a day. This reduces the excess on standard cars to a few hundred dollars, or even $0 and to approx. $1,000 on prestige cars.

Be careful with Europcar - my experience is that they are the worst for overcharging and charging for damage.