Hire cars · Excess and cover

Excess and damage cover on a hire car

Checked 1 October 2026 against each company's own published terms · skynomad

The rental price includes some cover for loss and damage, with an excess, the amount you pay yourself before the cover applies. Companies then sell products to reduce it. What matters is what is left out of each product. Checked on 1 October 2026 against each company's own terms and the UK competition authority's 2015 report on car rental.

Excess before you buy anything

Europcar publishes the numbers in the Tariff Guide inside its UK terms of hire, updated 5 January 2026. The standard collision damage waiver excess is up to £2,000 for small cars (mini, economy, compact), up to £2,200 for large (intermediate, standard), up to £4,000 for premium cars and up to £1,900 for vans. Its Medium package brings your liability down to between £350 and £1,050 depending on the vehicle, and its Premium package to £0.

Sixt UK does not publish a table of base excess by group in its terms; the figure is on the rental agreement. What it does say is that its loss or damage protection waiver can reduce the excess to between £0 and £150, depending on the product, your age and the vehicle group. Hertz points to the booking page and the rental agreement. For the three, the base excess is a number you find at the desk or in the booking summary, not in the contract.

What the company's cover leaves out

Read the exclusions, not the headline. Sixt UK's waiver does not reduce what you pay if the loss was caused by keys left in the vehicle, keys lost or stolen through your negligence, driving without due care or attention, or water or fire damage that was your fault. Europcar sells a separate Glass, Lights and Tyre cover for windscreens, tyres and glass. Hertz's electric-car terms exclude a lost key (€170), a lost cable and the charging fob from SuperCover.

The independent route: pay first, claim back

The cheaper alternative is excess reimbursement insurance from a specialist insurer. The UK competition authority describes it in its 2015 report: you pay the excess to the rental company if there is damage, then lodge a claim with the insurer, who refunds the money if the claim is upheld. That has two consequences for a driver. The deposit is higher than if you had bought the company's waiver, because the company has not been given the cover it sells, and you need the card to carry both the hold and the excess.

Pressure at the desk

The same report says some renters felt pressured at the pick-up desk to buy extras, because they were told or given the impression they were obliged to, or that a large deposit would otherwise be required. The authority's view is that charges added at the desk above the booked price can be an aggressive commercial practice. The defence is the one you already have: read the figures above, ask for the hold in writing, and say no to what you did not book.

The five-minute decision

If the excess is £2,000 and the company's cover is £15 a day for a week, that is about a hundred pounds. Compare that with the cost of an independent annual policy and what you can afford to lose from your card. This site does not sell insurance and links to no excess policy.

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