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Primary Vs. Secondary Car Rental Insurance Coverage

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Some flashy credit card travel benefits, like rewards points, are eagerly sought after by consumers of all stripes. Other perks go ignored until they are absolutely necessary. Not surprisingly, rental car insurance is at the top of this second list.

While it is increasingly common for travel rewards credit cards to offer a policy of some kind, customers may not always be certain what the coverage is good for. To further muddy the waters, card reviews and advertising generally label the insurance primary or secondary.

Before applying for a card, it's worth knowing the differences between these, as they can be significant.

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How Rental Car Insurance Works

Before diving into the differences between primary and secondary coverage, let's take a brief look at rental car insurance in general. First—and perhaps most importantly—the renter must pay for the car with the credit card that offers the protection. The cardholder also must be the primary renter, though other drivers will also be covered provided they are on the rental contract. Finally, the terms usually require the renter to decline the car rental agency's Collision Damage Waiver (CDW).

The CDW provides coverage for damage done to the car if there is an accident or theft during the rental and may also cover towing charges related to any covered damage. Using a clever tactic, rental companies frequently offer cheap sticker prices for their cars, since they can often make a pretty penny selling CDWs. These policies can cost anywhere from less than $10 to over $60 per day, depending on the agency and level of coverage. With robust insurance from your credit card, however, you can decline the CDW and feel confident that you are covered.

Liability Coverage

While insurance through a credit card might be able to replace the CDW, it does not provide any type of liability insurance. The CDW covers the driver's car, not other cars or people—unless it specifically comes with third-party liability coverage. Thus, if you were to cause an accident that damaged another vehicle or injured its passengers, you would be personally liable, even with credit card coverage.

To have full liability protection, you'd need to purchase the rental company's insurance at the counter (typically $8 to $20 per day), have coverage through your car insurance at home (usually only covers domestic rentals) or purchase a separate policy.

Some countries (e.G. Mexico and most of Europe) require liability insurance to be included in the rental price, so you don't need to purchase it yourself. When booking, you may see this reflected in the base rate as "third party insurance." Note that the maximum coverage offered by this included liability insurance can be low in some countries. For instance, in Mexico it may only cover around $17,000 in injuries and damages, but you can purchase supplemental liability insurance.

Read more: When Should You Buy a Collision Damage Waiver

The Difference Between Primary and Secondary Coverage

For starters, it's worth mentioning that most credit cards offer secondary insurance for rental cars. This means that the card's insurance will pay only the amount not covered by another policy the driver has. Therefore, you would have to file a claim with your other insurance first. As anyone who has dealt with insurance companies will know, this can be a time-consuming process.

On the other hand, with primary coverage from a credit card, personal car insurance is immaterial. As the name suggests, the primary insurance applies first, no matter what other coverage the renter has. Conveniently, this means you can start the process of submitting a claim by calling the number on the back of your card.

Why Primary Insurance Is Better

A card with primary coverage eliminates the need to file a claim with your personal car insurance, a process that would typically subject you to a deductible payment and monthly premium increase. Primary coverage is also more likely to have generous terms and cover the full cost of the car. In contrast, secondary policies sometimes have lower limits for total coverage, lower duration of rental allowed and fewer countries in which rentals are covered.

Cards That Provide Primary Coverage

Having established the value of primary car rental insurance, which credit cards offer it? As the list indicates, premium cards are your best bet.

Chase

Chase provides primary rental car coverage on the following cards:

The Chase small business cards below also provide primary coverage, but only when the rental is for business purposes:

U.S. Bank UBS Capital One American Express

American Express cards don't include complimentary primary coverage, but cardholders have the option to purchase it for an additional fee of $12.25 to $24.95 per rental. This can be done on the American Express website. Many American Express cards do offer secondary car rental coverage.¹

As you may suspect, because the policy comes at a cost, the terms are even more generous than those for the insurance offered by the cards from other issuers listed above. For example, the American Express program includes coverage for $15,000 of medical expenses for you and your passengers on a secondary basis (after any other medical or travel insurance) and offers coverage on rentals of up to 42 days, which is longer than most other cards. Even though this may be better than the terms for some other cards, note that liability coverage is still not included.

Other Options for Primary Insurance

While we're big proponents of utilizing the insurance you can get for no additional cost through your credit card, you can also purchase primary car rental insurance through companies such as Allianz, Bonzah and others.

Where You Rent Might Matter

Some cards provide secondary coverage in the driver's country of residence (where you might be covered by your regular auto policy) and primary coverage abroad. As a general rule, secondary coverage abroad will effectively act as primary coverage, since most personal car insurance policies will not be applicable outside the U.S. Similarly, if you don't own a car and therefore don't have car insurance, even secondary coverage will essentially act as primary coverage in the U.S.

While renting a normal sedan in most countries will be covered by a credit card insurance policy, there are notable exclusions—typically expensive or exotic cars, vans with a capacity of over eight people and antique cars. Your policy may also not be valid in certain countries (Jamaica, Ireland, Italy, Australia and New Zealand to name a few), although Chase cards now offer worldwide coverage. Rental duration may be a factor as well; rentals longer than two to four weeks may not be covered. As always, check your card's terms and conditions for the precise stipulations.

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Bottom Line

Primary rental car insurance is a valuable benefit offered mostly by top-tier cards. It can provide peace of mind when declining the rental company's coverage and save quite a bit of money. It will make life easier by eliminating the need to file claims elsewhere if you do ever need to file a claim. This is especially beneficial in the event of an accident that damages the car, since it won't cause a rate increase on your normal auto policy. However, as mentioned above, it is not a substitute for liability coverage.

If you enjoy the freedom of having a car when traveling, the insurance provided by your credit card can provide fantastic value. Be sure to investigate these benefits before applying for a card or heading to the rental counter.

For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.¹Eligibility and Benefit level varies by Card. Terms, Conditions and Limitations Apply. Please visit americanexpress.Com/benefitsguide for more details. Underwritten by AMEX Assurance Company. Car Rental Loss or Damage Coverage is offered through American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.

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Why Trump Is So Hard To Beat

In the half century of modern presidential primaries, no candidate who led his or her nearest rival by at least 20 points at this stage has ever lost a party nomination.

Today, Donald J. Trump's lead over Ron DeSantis is nearly twice as large: 37 points, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll of the likely Republican primary electorate released Monday morning.

Of course, there's still plenty of time left before the Iowa caucuses in January. The candidates haven't even set foot on a debate stage. And while no candidate has ever lost a nomination with so much support, no candidate with so much support has faced so many criminal indictments and investigations, either.

But even if it might be a mistake to call Mr. Trump "inevitable," the Times/Siena data suggests that he commands a seemingly unshakable base of loyal supporters, representing more than one-third of the Republican electorate. Alone, their support is not enough for Mr. Trump to win the primary. But it is large enough to make him extremely hard to defeat — perhaps every bit as hard as the historical record suggests.

Here's what we know about the depth of the support for — and opposition to — Mr. Trump from our poll, and why it's so hard to beat the former president.

The MAGA base, defined

It's populist. It's conservative. It's blue collar. It's convinced the nation is on the verge of catastrophe. And it's exceptionally loyal to Donald Trump.

As defined here, members of Mr. Trump's MAGA base represent 37 percent of the Republican electorate. They "strongly" support him in the Republican primary and have a "very favorable" view of him.

The MAGA base doesn't support Mr. Trump in spite of his flaws. It supports him because it doesn't seem to believe he has flaws.

Zero percent — not a single one of the 319 respondents in this MAGA category — said he had committed serious federal crimes. A mere 2 percent said he "did something wrong" in his handling of classified documents. More than 90 percent said Republicans needed to stand behind him in the face of the investigations.

Perhaps Mr. DeSantis or another Republican will peel away a few of these voters, but realistically this group isn't going anywhere, maybe not even if Mr. Trump winds up being imprisoned. This group is probably about the same as the voters — 37 percent — who supported Mr. Trump in the polls on Super Tuesday in 2016. It's probably about the same as the group of Republicans — 41 percent — who supported him at his low point in January, in the wake of last November's midterm elections.

This is an impressive base of support, but it still is not quite a majority of the Republican primary electorate. Most of the Republican electorate either doesn't strongly support Mr. Trump in the primary or doesn't support him at all. Most don't have a "very favorable" view of the former president, either. In theory, it means there's an opening for another candidate.

But with so much of the G.O.P. Electorate seemingly devoted to Mr. Trump, the path to defeating him is exceptionally narrow. It requires a candidate to consolidate the preponderance of the rest of the Republican electorate, and the rest of the Republican electorate is not easy to unify.

The divided Republican Party

The MAGA base lends itself to easy description. The rest of the Republican electorate does not.

But broadly speaking, the rest of the Republican electorate can be divided into two groups.

There's the group of voters who may not love Mr. Trump, but who remain open to him in the primary and in some cases support him over the alternatives. It's a group that's broadly reflective of the Republican electorate as a whole: It's somewhat conservative, somewhat favorable toward Mr. Trump, somewhat favorable toward Mr. DeSantis, and split on whether to support the former president, at least for now.

There's also a second group of voters who probably won't support Mr. Trump. They represent about one-quarter of the primary electorate and they say they're not considering him in the primary. These voters tend to be educated, affluent, moderate, and they're often more than just Trump skeptics. A majority of these voters view him unfavorably, say he's committed crimes and don't even back him in the general election against President Biden, whether that's because they actually prefer Mr. Biden or simply wouldn't vote.

These two groups of voters don't just differ on Mr. Trump; they disagree on the issues as well. Mr. Trump's skeptics support additional military and economic aid to Ukraine, and comprehensive immigration reform, while they oppose a six-week abortion ban. The persuadable voters, on the other hand, take the opposite view on all of those issues.

Yet to beat Mr. Trump, a candidate must somehow hold nearly all of these voters together.

The DeSantis challenge

It would be hard for any candidate to consolidate the fractious opposition to Mr. Trump.

It has certainly been hard for Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor.

At the start of the year, it seemed he figured out how to win both conservative and moderate skeptics of Mr. Trump by focusing on a new set of issues — the fight against "woke" and freedom from coronavirus restrictions. This seemed to excite establishment donors and even some independents every bit as much as conservative activists and Fox News hosts.

It hasn't turned out that way. The fight against woke has offered few opportunities to attack Mr. Trump — strange social media videos notwithstanding — while Covid has faded from political relevance.

Without these issues, Mr. DeSantis has become a very familiar kind of conservative Republican. As with the Ted Cruz campaign in 2016, Mr. DeSantis has run to Mr. Trump's right on every issue. In doing so, he has struggled to appeal to the moderate voters who represent the natural base of a viable opposition to Mr. Trump.

Mr. DeSantis is faring poorly enough among Trump skeptics to give other candidates an opening, much as Mr. Cruz's conservative brand created a space for the ultimately nonviable John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush candidacies.

Overall, Mr. DeSantis holds just 32 percent of voters who aren't considering Mr. Trump, with the likes of Chris Christie, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy each attracting between 5 percent and 10 percent of the vote.

Among the "Never Trump" group of voters who don't support Mr. Trump against President Biden in a hypothetical general election rematch, Mr. DeSantis only narrowly leads Mr. Christie, 16 percent to 13 percent.

Of course, Mr. DeSantis's challenge runs even deeper than divisions among his potential supporters. Republican primary voters don't even believe he would do better than Mr. Trump in the general election against Mr. Biden, overturning an advantage that DeSantis backers might have taken for granted six months ago.

And Mr. DeSantis would face an entirely different set of challenges if he aimed his appeal at Mr. Trump's deepest skeptics. He might alienate the mainstream conservative center of the Republican Party if he started to speak the moderate and anti-Trump language of Mr. Trump's critics — and meet the same fate as Mr. Rubio and Mr. Kasich.

But the promise of the DeSantis campaign was that he could appeal to the otherwise disparate Trump-skeptics factions of the Republican Party, and avoid the challenges that doomed Mr. Trump's opponents eight years ago. So far, it hasn't worked.

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