Originally Posted by
guv1976
For European rentals, what does the $12 Amex primary insurance give you that the free, secondary insurance offered on many Amex, Visa, and MasterCards does not? For Americans renting outside of the U.S. and Canada, "secondary" insurance typically becomes primary, as most American car-rental insurance provides no coverage outside the U.S./Canada.
Technically with secondary insurance on rental cars, I think the customer is supposed to pay the damages first, then seek reimbursement from secondary insurance with receipts. I recall reading that last week when I was investigating this situation for my European road trip in July.
With the Amex or Chase Sapphire primary rental car insurance, they take care of everything up to $75,000 or $100,000 (another Amex option). I think having the upgraded primary insurance just avoids some grief in a worst case scenario.
Maybe a car rental expert can confirm this for sure.
However, if I were in the situation of a rental car accident with only secondary insurance, I don’t think I would pay anything up front. They only have a small deposit hold on your credit card of $200 to $300 usually.
If we are talking $5,000 to $10,000 in damage, I would freeze my credit card so they cannot hit it again for big damage. Then I would be very helpful trying to connect the rental car company with the secondary insurance provider. I don’t want to risk being out $5,000 to $10,000 based on a technicality.