Originally Posted by
sdsearch
All good and fine within the US. However, you need a completely diferent, harder to get, policy for your auto insurance to cover you worlwide. (At my auto insurance company, they said I could only get it through an "umbrella" policy, which I in turn could only add if I had two different policies with them, such as auto and home or auto and rental.)
If you read the fine print, many other creidt cards have exclusions left an right that DC doesn't have, including for example Ireland.
Finally, even within the US, if your accident is purely collision, if you handle it through your own insurance company it geos on your record (and may raise your rates the next year), but if it's handled through DC the insurance company doesn't have a record of it and so it doesn't affect your insurance rates. This is only because you're using truly primary coliision insurance with DC.
Since DC is not an option as already discussed, I was offering
other options. You make a good point on international, you need to check with your insurance company to see what is covered (e.g., I would assume some international countries may be covered, such as Canada).
My point on using your own coverage was that it's not worth paying the ridiculous rates the rental car companies charge, even if your rates will go up if you need to file a claim, unless you smash up a lot of cars.