TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Car Rental - CDW and Liability Insurance

I will be in St Martin from Feb 21-28 and staying in a villa in Orient Village. I am looking for opinions on the value of supplemental insurance. I am renting from Leasure Car Rental and my US insurance will not cover SXM driving. Do most of you who rent cars on SXM buy the supplemental insurance? Thanks

Hi there. I just checked on all of this. I live in Canada. My own car insurance does not cover me either. What you do,,,is check with one of your visa's, mastercards, etc. Some have protection for this. I used my capitol one mastercard. They told me to decline the CDW at car rental place, but to absolutley pay the liability price per day. I have done this in the past. One time, someone smashed the hood of a suv we had rented,,,not bad, but nonetheless the car rental place wanted it fixed, rightly so. We had no idea who did it,,prob in a parking lot. No problem, as I had rented the vehicle on my mastercard capitol one,,,all was good. Car rental company deals with mastercard.
I will advise that you call whatever credit card company that you are using, just to confirm that you have the coverage.

I have an agreement with American Express, that if I book a rental car using their card, and turn down the liability insurance, that is then covered by my American Express card. But then I always buy the collision coverage separately. I did a search online for the Am Ex vehicle rental agreement for liability insurance after learning about it on this travel board, and have used it ever since.

Interesting that yours is opposite than mine, guess every card company has different rules,,,always pays to confirm with your own. The liability is a lot less to pay than CDW,,so am happy that my cap one pays for it. I think liability is like only 5 dollars a day. We rented from Unity this time again. Good luck and have fun on the island.

I think you should double check. In my experience if you want the CC to cover collision you must TURN DOWN the collision insurance from the rental company. Liability is never covered by a CC.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Best advice is check with your cc company for coverage info as your car insurance probably does not cover you in SXM.
From Canada, my Visa and Am EX will cover the collision but not the liability, so we buy the liability. I have found the liability cost varies car rental co to co. I suggest you check on the liability deductable as one rental co's quote may be lower, but the deductible higher.
Note – some cars offshore NA may not be covered by your cc, if you want to rent the bimmer on island, check 1st!
Short version, check for coverage and understand what you are paying for.
Overheard a conversation by the pool last winter at SXM, person was very putout that the car rental co pushed him hard to pay liability - he told them NO - his card of course covered him etc etc - did not have the heart to break into his rant and suggest otherwise
J&B

Phillygirl's advice is the opposite of what my card companies have told me. I've had one rental car stolen during my 20+ years. My card covered it, as I had declined the collision coverage.

Likewise, though I've never had a car stolen. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

I use AMEX for rentals and I called tonight and was advised that the approx $29 per rental term covers collision / damage / theft but provides no coverage for liability. They advised accepting the liability provided by the rental agency.

I'm also in the camp of Credit Card covers collision, but you have to buy your own liability outside of the states. In the states, my own auto insurance with my umbrella supplement covers the liability. But again, outside the USA, purchase liability. And lastly, I agree, check with both your credit card company and your own auto insurance company.

I did have it backwards, sorry about that. You are all correct it is the collision I have to decline. It is the liability I always buy separately. Answered without my folder in front of me, but it is the Am Ex policy that I do like, they take over as primary if there is a collision.

In Canada, my credit card covers collision, my auto insurance covers liability, no matter what car I drive.
YMMV

It's not the car you drive, you have to make sure your coverage is in force for the Country you are traveling to.

If you keep the car more than 30 days Visa will not cover collision.

There are time limits and I have used 2 cards to rent my vehicles and created essentially to distinct transactions when I've had to exceed those limits. On some cards the limit is even a fewer number of days.

Our Visa (RBC) covers "no more than 48 consecutive days".

We rent from Automax on the French side. Liability is included. We decline the CDW in favor of our credit card. Did not cost us a nickle after I banged up the side of the car backing out of Bruno's O'Paradis.

BobandJeana

Ours does too, and we carry a letter from our insurance company stating that, should there ever be a problem.The USA insurance companies don't do that and some Canadian companies don't either, so we are fortunate.

Some have a maximum number of days covered per year as well.

Between VISA & our Canadian insurance company we are covered for everything for 48 days but think we should double check that this year.