This certainly applies to hires for European residents booking through the Hertz website, but may apply to others as well so it is worth checking.

It is well known that almost every hire car company in Europe have a CDW excess of around €900 or more, hoping that they can pursuade you to purchase their excess waiver policy for anything up to €30 a day. Of course, there are plenty of companies that will sell much cheaper policies to cover this excess, almost all of their websites using these words or something similar.

In many countries, car rental insurance policies include CDW and SLI as standard. However, if you are renting in certain countries, such as those in North, South or Central America, you may need to purchase CDW and SLI separately.

In fact, it is VERY difficult to find a company in Europe that will sell insurance to cover CDW on the basis that all car hire companies include it. They are only interested in covering the excess, above what they think the car hire companies are offering. Recently SIXT, have stopped including CDW in their rates, and now Hertz have followed. Insurance is now being offered as a extra, to be bought at the counter. Of course, Gold Canopy and President's Circle members never go to the counter, so may well be driving off, completely unaware that if they have an accident, they may be liable for the full cost of the damage, not to mention being prosecuted for having no insurance.

A booking that I did yesterday for a hire out of Frankfurt had the following notes.