Is rental car insurance a smart buy?

You deplane and head to claim your rental car. But before you snag your ride, you face a barrage of questions about insurance coverage.

As with your own car, when renting you need adequate insurance coverage for damages to the vehicle and other cars, theft, and injuries to others. Should you buy the plans rental companies push?

The short answer: If you have a personal auto insurance policy, the plans offered by rental agencies mostly duplicate your coverage.

For a recent Budget rental Checkbook reserved, the base price was $36 per day, plus $26.50 a day for taxes and the usual jumble of fees.

Adding Loss Damage Waiver coverage — which shifts financial responsibility to the rental company if the car is damaged or stolen — would cost an extra $30.99 per day. Supplemental Liability Insurance, which covers injuries to others, was $18.32 a day. Personal Accident and Effects coverage, which pays for injuries to passengers in the car and damage to belongings, would be $9.95 a day.

In total, Budget’s price for “full coverage” was $59.26 per day — almost as much as the cost to rent the car.

These fees are typical: Checkbook checked rates with other major agencies and was quoted prices ranging from $27 to $42 per day just to cover damage to the car; liability coverage added $13 to $16 a day.

Why do so many customers get rental car insurance? In part, lack of information.

Rental companies’ websites typically list brief descriptions of coverage and don’t mention that personal auto policies provide similar coverage.

Another factor: the hard sell. Customer service agents often say things like, “and you’ll want full protection,” as if it’s not optional. Decline all coverage and they’ll commonly warn: “So you will be taking full financial responsibility for the car,” which isn’t true if you have your own policy.

If your personal policy includes collision and comprehensive coverage, it will pay claims for physical damage to cars you rent in the U.S. and Canada. Similarly, when you rent a car, the liability coverage offered by your personal auto policy covers you for injuries to others.

But your personal coverage probably won’t apply to car rentals outside the U.S. and Canada. And your auto policy is unlikely to cover any rental car for more than a month.

If you rent a vehicle using a credit card, you might get free physical damage coverage — but not liability coverage — from your credit card company. This is standard on many American Express, Mastercard, and Visa cards.

If you already have a policy, the credit card company’s plan is secondary coverage. That means the credit card company first will require you to make a claim with your personal auto insurer; most drivers then will get reimbursed for remaining out-of-pocket costs.

To activate this coverage, you must decline the rental company’s physical damage coverage and use the credit card to pay for the rental. Read up on your card’s coverage to learn of any restrictions or exclusions.

When rental companies blame their customers for damage to their cars, they make them liable not only for the cost of repairs, but for revenue lost while the vehicles are out of commission.

These penalties are usually excessive. You might rent a car for $50 per day, but the rental company could charge you a “rack rate” of $125 or more for each day it takes to repair the vehicle. California, New York, and Wisconsin have banned loss-of-use charges for car rentals.

Your personal auto insurance policy might not cover “loss-of-use” charges rental car companies enforce — although insurers are increasingly adding this protection. Many credit cards provide loss-of-use protection but, again, it’s secondary coverage to any personal auto insurance policy.

Physical damage coverage from rental car companies covers loss-of-use penalties but paying an extra $30 to $40 per day to cover the unlikely risk of losing $125 or even $200 per day doesn’t add up.

Although your personal auto policy won’t cover you when you drive abroad, local laws often require companies to maintain high levels of insurance coverage for all customers.

For example, the European Union requires companies to carry at least €1 million of liability insurance on all their vehicles. In other countries, most rental agencies include robust insurance coverage in their rental rates.

For less than $20 a day, companies like Allianz and Travel Guard offer primary insurance policies for rentals. If you don’t own a car, it’s worth considering one of these plans. But note that these policies don’t include liability or loss-of-use coverage.

If you’re an American Express cardholder, consider enrolling in its “Premium Car Rental Protection” program. For a flat fee of $24.95 for each rental you charge to your card, you get primary insurance that covers:

Delaware Valley Consumers’ Checkbook magazine and Checkbook.org is a nonprofit organization with a mission to help consumers get the best service and lowest prices. It is supported by consumers and takes no money from the service providers it evaluates. Until Sept. 5, Inquirer readers can access Checkbook’s full car-rental-insurance report and all other ratings and advice free.