Find out if you need to purchase rental car insurance before approaching the counter. The rental car agency will make several offers to sell you supplementary insurance. Included in this is collision coverage for the rental car itself. It also covers liability insurance in case you hurt someone else or cause damage to their property.
Both of those insurance exclude coverage for lost or stolen personal property. The theft of your laptop from the vehicle is not covered by CDW/LDW or liability insurance.
Rental car firms provide expensive Personal Effects Coverage, which has few benefits, to close this gap. Yet do you require it?

What does a rental car’s personal effects coverage necessarily involve?

Typically, Personal Effects Coverage costs $2 per day. For the theft of personal items, it typically offers insurance coverage of $600 per person, up to a maximum of $1,800. Nonetheless, rental businesses frequently combine PEC with personal accident insurance (PAI). This can result in an additional daily expense of $5–11 plus taxes and fees.

The PEC option is comparable if you rent from a big rental company because it is supplied by third-party insurers.

This insurance may provide redundant protection. You may already be covered by your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance, and it is most likely your primary form of protection. This means that normally, your own coverage will pay out first. When the policy restrictions are reached, the PEC will then go into effect.

These policies typically contain exclusions and limitations as well. Examples of typical exclusions are:

  • Vehicles and their parts, motorcycles, boats, motors, and other modes of transportation, as well as their accessories.
  • Items used in the home, money, coins, stamps, deeds, securities, gold, tickets, or documents.
  • CB radios, radar detectors, GPS technology, firearms, goods for sale, or beautiful art.
  • prosthetic limbs, teeth, and contacts.

“Loss by strange disappearance” is not included in PEC. So, PEC won’t provide aid if something is taken from a locked automobile without breaking in.

The Dangers of Skipping PEC While Renting a Vehicle

What occurs if you reject the PEC but don’t have homeowner’s insurance or renter’s insurance? In short, you are helpless if your personal belongings are damaged or stolen. Even if the rental automobile itself was to blame for the damage, that still holds true.

As a lesson, Enterprise refused to pay for a renter’s personal belongings after their rental automobile caught fire. Because the renters had CDW/LDW but not PEC, the insurance only covered the burned-out automobile and not the tenants’ belongings. Unfortunately, there was no recourse because the car had no recognized recall or problem.