How does breakdown cover work in car hire

When you hire a car at home, on holiday, or for business, you expect to be given a well-maintained vehicle that has been well cared for. But even when cars are regularly serviced and checked, the worst can happen, and a breakdown can strike.

Breakdowns in hired vehicles are especially inconvenient because few of us would know how to fix the cars we hire. We also tend to hire vehicles for special journeys or events, so long delays or unexpected costs are never welcome.

Breakdown Cover Varies

When you buy car hire excess insurance, you benefit from knowing that any damage is covered by your policy.

In addition, you may be offered breakdown cover. But it’s important to understand the difference between traditional breakdown cover and car hire breakdown cover.

In short, car hire excess insurance essentially pays for any breakdown cover you use via your hire company. So if you break down, you don’t use your excess insurance to recover the vehicle - you use your regular car hire company’s breakdown procedure, and then claim any costs back from the excess insurance provider.

This gives you the peace of mind of dealing with the car hire company direct for the purposes of getting the car recovered and fixed. If you’re given a bill, you’d then pass that on to your excess insurance provider, and they’d process it as a claim.

Important Notes

With any car hire transaction or car hire excess insurance policy, the fine print is important. Check that your hire company provides adequate breakdown cover, and then check that your car hire excess insurer will meet the costs if you need to claim.

Of course, you need to ensure that your car hire excess policy is valid for the duration and location of your car hire rental. If you’re due to hire more than one car a year, you’ll generally find that an annual policy is the most cost-effective solution. It also means you’re covered for any car hire transaction without the need to keep buying new policies to cover the excess.

Hiring cars outside your home country may mean you need a different car hire excess policy. Again, for ease of administration, we recommend that you buy an annual policy covering all the locations you’re going to visit. A Europe-wide policy is a sensible choice if you hire cars at home and abroad.

Be sure to check that your car hire company provides adequate breakdown cover for the locations you plan to drive in.

Final Thoughts

Car hire excess insurance offers valuable protection against unexpected costs when hiring a car. Not only does it ensure that you aren’t exposed to massive costs for damage, it could also help to cover any breakdown costs that are passed on to you by your car hire company. For a small one-off fee, or a modest annual payment, you could obtain car hire excess cover for every trip.

For more information about our policies,speak to a friendly advisor at Row.co.uk today.

*The information in this blog is designed to provide helpful information on the subjects discussed. Please seek a professional for expert advice as we can not be held responsible for any damages or negative consequences upon following this information.

Keeping your kitchen clean is more than just a case of keeping up appearances. A clean kitchen is far less likely to harbour harmful germs. But our kitchens are used for all kinds of different activities, and keeping them clean can feel like a never-ending chore.

Fortunately, we’ve got some kitchen cleaning hacks to make an unpleasant job much easier.

Image result for clean kitchen

Washing Up Liquid is Your Friend

In the kitchen, few products can rival simple dish detergent for both economy and cleaning power. It can cut through hard, baked-on grease with ease when paired with hot water.

For example, you can use washing up liquid to get gunk off your hob; just pour hot water on and use a microfibre cloth to apply washing up liquid. Leave for around 20 minutes to soak, and you should find that the detergent lifts the grime away without the need to scrub.

Baking Soda Boosts Cleaning Power

Baking soda is a handy additive that makes cleaning cheap and simple. Try it when you next clean your oven trays. Just work a generous amount in with some water until you get a gloopy paste, then smear it onto your oven trays and leave it for an hour.

You can use the same simple mixture on your oven glass and metal racks. For the glass, just open the door and smear it on, then leave it to dissolve the brown marks for half an hour. You may be left with a soft sludge; if so, a ‘magic eraser’ sponge will wipe off the remaining marks.

Once you start using baking soda to clean, you’ll find dozens of uses for it. We recommend buying bulk bags of baking soda online, rather than using the small catering packs -- they can be expensive.

Lemon Juice - a Natural Cleaner

Lemon juice is a great cleaner that adds zingy freshness to stale areas of the kitchen. You can use lemon juice to soften and remove cooked-on microwave stains; just add fresh lemons to a bowl of water and microwave until just before the water boils over.

Lemon is also great for cleaning surfaces that you don’t want to saturate with soap. If you use wooden chopping boards, a slice of lemon will freshen them nicely. Add baking soda if you need to remove tough marks.

Do Away With Packaging for Hygienic Storage

Storing food can be tricky in cramped kitchens, or small freezers. But if you remove packaging, you could fit in much more while making it easier to organise and clean. For example, meat, fish, or frozen foods can be organised much more neatly when wrapped in labelled bags rather than the oversized boxes they are delivered in. Just be sure to mark each one with the use by date.

The same trick works well with breakfast cereals that tend to take up a lot more space than they really should. For items that require a seal, an inexpensive vacuum sealer machine will allow you to shrink your food down to the minimum size for clean, hygienic storage.

Invest in Stacking Boxes for a Cleaner Fridge

When did you last clean your fridge? Removing shelves and washing trays is a chore none of us enjoy. So consider investing in stacking fridge boxes instead. Keeping food contained is the best way to prevent contamination and spillages. As a bonus, it also ensures that everything in the fridge is easy to find when you need it.

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