Thank you for info concerning car rental insurance by credit card companies. It was by reading info in this forum that I realized my credit card covered damages to rental vehicles. You saved us over $900.

Our incident did not occur during our trip to Bonaire this year but a couple months later on Grand Cayman. However, if I had not read the info here, I would not have been aware of my coverage.

Visa's auto rental program covering damage to rentals is awesome. We rented a jeep from Avis in Grand Cayman using our Visa for payment. Our US car insurance does not cover us out of the country (except Canada). DH did not get Avis insurance. A passing truck caused a rock to fly up and crack the windshield of the jeep. Avis charged us over $900 for the windshield.
After we got home, I remembered reading here about credit card coverage so decided to give our claim a shot. The process was quick, efficient, and excellent. Avis in GC was great in providing the paperwork necessary to submit my claim. Visa provided superior service in covering the damage to the vehicle.

LV..There are many many folks out there who pick up on useful tidbits of information on this board!
Glad it helped your pocketbook.

And that's $900 you can put toward your next trip to Bonaire....

Pays to know what coverage you have and even more important what you aren't covered for.

My VISA card covers almost all my rentals, but not pickup trucks. I called and explained that we rent a pickup in Bonaire but they will not cover it as pickups tend to get abused, overloaded, etc.

No luck explaining that two people, gear and four tanks won't overload the truck and we're not going into the park.

Sometimes you win sometimes you loose.

B Maxim,
Get an amex card, they cover pickups.

Not Canadian amex cards. I have an amex card also - doesn't cover pickups!!!! In fact when I talked to amex yesterday and asked if a different card plan would cover it, they said no amex plan (in Canada) covers pickups - it was a marketing decision (I guess they want a smaller market share!)

So I use VISA for better return on airmiles.

Grand Cayman must be a bad luck place to rent cars. WHen we spent 11 nights this summer, a coconut was blown out of a tree at Sunset House during a storm. We had a BIG hole in the roof. We'd also used Visa and got it taken care of.