Wilkinson Coutts & Matthews Integrity Training

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WILKINSON COUTTS / MATTHEWS INTEGRITY HUB: an up-to-the-minute information mix designed to help you with your lifework and career development in the asset integrity, inspection and NDE industries.

AIRPORT CAR HIRE

Airport Car Hire extras (borderline inertia selling)

Everybody gets caught by this, so stop worrying. Whatever fantasy cost figure for daily car hire you get quoted on the phone or website, it’s just fluffy fiction. Once you get to the airport car hire desk various extras are going to appear in the microprint on your car hire contract, most of them are to do with insurance in one form or another. This is all fair enough, as long as you read what you are signing for. Look in more detail however and you will find there’s often some risks mentioned on the hire contract that may not be covered.

Car rental

Here at Matthew Integrity Hub: Travel Nanny we decided to review all our old car hire contract copies from around the world (we have them dating back to 1999) and see just what these uninsurable (at any cost) risks actually might be, so we can warn you to watch out for them. Here’s what we found

Uninsured hire car risks you may end up paying for

  • ‘Overhead hazards’; (Norway). This is for falling rocks, particularly around Bergen and Stavanger where there are lots of road tunnels.
  • ‘Damage to tyres’; a fairly commonplace one
  • ‘Damage from transporting animals in the vehicle’ (Oman). Must relate to sheep
  • ‘Collision with Llamas’ (Bolivia).Makes sense
  • ‘Unlawful Gangway boarding’ (Spanish Islands).We think this either means damaging the car when driving onto a ferry or is something to do with having your car hi-jacked with you in it. Truth is we’re still not sure. If you find out let us know.
  • ‘Bad activity such as naughty malice or prostituting’ (Ulan Bator, Mongolia). And quite right too.
  • Confluence of bad diseases (Ivory Coast). Best not go there.

 It just goes to show what you can end up paying for if you are not careful.

May we please make clear that not all car hire companies do this. It’s just that we must have met those who do.

The TRAVELLER