Baja Rental Car Insurance

[halibut]

Hi All,

I'm flying into Cabo and renting a car again this year. Last year I rented from Hertz and they included the mandatory Mexico liability in their online quote. This year I found better rates from other providers but I'm assuming no insurance is included so will follow up. From what I understand Amex and other cards will cover everything EXCEPT the mandatory Mexico liability part. Any insurance experts or Baja travelers out there that can shed some light on the subject?

Thanks!

[Kyle]

the first time we went to baja I made the rookie mistake of renting a car based on the cheapest online quote which, obviously, did not include the mandatory insurance. I did not like the surprise at the counter and will never take that risk again. Lately I've been renting from Hertz, but declining the typical "no questions asked" insurance which basically lets you return the car with scratches/dings/totaled and not have to worry about a thing. I think the credit cards include this type of coverage, but I'm not sure. Last year I did manage to back over some half-burried concrete pillar on the beach in Los Barilles and do some serious cosmetic damage to the wheel well. Fortunately, they didn't notice when I returned the car but I was pretty stressed out about it until our wheels were up on the flight out of there. Just to avoid even the thought of trying to haggle with credit cards/police/hertz managers I may even spring for the extra insurance this year. It's my vacation, I don't want to worry about anything but what size kite I should fly:)

[etxxz]

+1 on the CC.. check yours. I have two CC's that give me vehicle insurance when traveling, domestically and internally... you have to pay with said CC of course.

[Rakky]

Has anyone had an incident where the credit card insurance actually paid for the damage

As mentioned above, I also felt ripped off during a Cabo visit last year, where the Hertz rental was about $20 a day, but the insurance was nearly twice that for full coverage.
I gave into the full insurance cover bumper-to-bumper, as I was afraid of any residual costs incurred during our trip, from scratches, dents etc, from the shitty roads. Our pos car had very low power, probably goat powered.
Have not figured out a better solution yet

[androka]

Most CC insurance coverage agreements do not cover Mexico and even the ones you can use domestic don't include personal liability. You can google mexican auto insurance to get more info, par examplar: http://www.bajabound.com/info/whybuy.php

or if you don't believe the interweb, take if from Mike Godsey:
http://www.iwindsurf.com/travel.iws?genID=7

[halibut]

So here is what I found out in the mean time. My cheapo rental from Budget said in the small print that the price of Mex liability insurance was included in the ridiculously cheap price (something like $77 for 12 days.) Further research revealed that Amex will cover LDW (damage to the car or persons in it) when you use their card to pay even in Mexico (there were some countries listed that they wont cover.) There are some limits which you can bump up for something like $30 per rental period up to 45 days.

I think I'll do what I did last year and confirm ahead of time with Amex by asking them to send a certificate of insurance and then decline everything at the rental counter except Mex liability.

Hope that helps.