Question: How well do you know your car-rental policy?
I have been in the industry for more than 10 years and have asked other operators and found I am not the only one who did not know about this particular problem with car-rental insurance.
So here it is:
We work a lot with the German market and often cater for self-drive clients – among which we also have lots of families. This year for the first time I had a very difficult client who wanted everything in writing, especially all the insurance issues surrounding his travel arrangements. This particular family is travelling with two children, a baby and a five-year-old.
When he asked me to what extent the children were covered, I thought a quick email would fix all his worries – little did I know that this was only the beginning of a long search to which I still have not found the solution.
We have tried numerous car-rental agencies and they have sent us their insurance papers which state only passengers between 18 and 74 are covered and there is no “top up” insurance offered to remedy this situation. This means under the insurance cover, which the client pays with names like “super cover” etc, his/her most valuable asset is not insured.
I am now shocked to think about all the family holidays I have sold in the past couple of years and not once did it cross my mind that companies that offer extras like baby seats would exclude children from their insurance packages – and at least, if they did, they would advise a client accordingly.
Do you know of any car insurance that has a comprehensive PAI or an insurance company that would offer an easy solution in this case for overseas clients?
Susanne Müller
Answer
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for raising this very important issue in the travel industry and hope to provide you with some comfort from an Avis Car Rental perspective. Let me also say that in light of changes to the Road Accident Fund (RAF), it is more important than ever that all of us in the travel and tourism industry try to highlight the risks to our customers without causing unnecessary concern.
Personal Accident Insurance (PAI) is sold by many car-rental companies and is intended to help pay (with limits), for example, evacuation and hospitalisation costs in the event of an accident and injuries sustained to the renter and/or passengers in the vehicle. It is important to note that policy conditions and limits vary quite widely within the industry. During our FAIS (Financial Advisory Intermediary Service) compliance programme we redesigned our PAI brochure, which includes a detailed summary of the insurance to ensure that it is not only legally compliant but also easy to read and understand. We have eliminated small print and clearly highlighted exclusions.
The full text of the brochure, is available on our website.
To your particular concern about insurance coverage for children, there was a legal restriction which limited the death benefit to only R10 000 for minors under the age of 15. This law has now been amended to allow a death benefit of R10 000 for minors under the age of six and R30 000 for minors between the ages of six and 14. We have amended our policies accordingly.
It is also important to note that we as travel and tourism service providers are, by law, not allowed to offer advice on the PAI product which falls into the ambit of “providing financial advice” in the FAIS and the Short Term Insurance Act - placing restrictions on our staff when dealing with insurance-related queries. These restrictions are often not understood by our customers who then mistakenly think of our staff as being unhelpful or worse still incompetent.
Tourism is one of the keys to the future of this great country and we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enjoy a steep change next year when we host the FIFA World Cup. As an industry we do need to try to develop a simple communications for customers highlighting the need for them to discuss their travel insurance needs with their qualified financial adviser and look to policies like PAI to complement their insurance needs rather than to replace them.
Read the Avis Personal Accident Insurance policy