Toastedmallow,

We travelled from Paris to Nice in 2004 by car, hired through Avis in the U.K. some time previous. I'm fairly certain ALL waivers were included as I'd not have rented on the understanding that I'd be liable for loss of any deposit in event of damage.

We intend to hire again for summer 2006 and will specifically watch for this - thanks to your warning. I'll try to remember to post the outcome on this thread at that time.

We hired from Europcar in Nice last summer and I think we chose to pay an extra amount so that we didn't have to pay such a huge excess if we did have a claim. I assumed we were fully comprehensive!!!! and never even queried this fact.

Gill

I was rather surprised to hear your experiences, Toasted Mallow, but I know that you were in the south of France during the last fortnight when we had our worst 'troubles'. Given the circumstances of the form taken by most of the hooligans, I can understand why your car rental company wanted to hedge all their bets; but I don't think this is a normal feature of car rental insurance in France. I've never experienced this for myself, and have no reason to doubt your experience, but think that there is an element of being in the wrong place at the wrong time which has highlighted the problem you faced.

Gill - what's the latest of your parents' car hire problems - might you PM me when convenient, now that you are back home.

No this had nothing to do with the recent unrest. The Lonely Planet guide book for Nice stated these conditions under car rental advice regarding a 500 euro excess, so I can only suppose this is standard form as the 3 agencies we enquired in all gave the same info.

Oh well, the rest of France do tell anyone who'll listen that anyone from the 'Midi' is 'special'!

Hi! As a previous employee of Hetz perhaps I can help by explaining some of the terms & conditions!
All car hire automatically covers third part insurance , also icluded in the majority of rentals are CDW : Colision damage waiver which is your insurance should you damage the car in some way with an excess depending on model of car (varies between 400-1100 euro!) In french it's know as Rachat Partiel de la Franchise.TP which is theft protection also carries an excess of a similar amount to that of CDW. It is now possible to eliminate these excesses but at a cost..! Where the excess is high people do tend to take it out.
It is also worth noting that where an incident occurs you will not get the deposit back until after all repair work has been done at which you will be refunded the difference and presented with detailed bill. Hirers should also be aware that the sum of the excess is blocked on their credit card at the beginning of the rental and in some cases blocked twice to cover both excess so for people renting an Espace up to 2200 euro can be blocked on the card..something people are not alays aware of uhtil they try and pay their hotel bill!

Hope the above is of some help!!