Just noticed that the rental place i have a car with only offers CDW. Can a full be added from someplace else? How needed is it??

Ron..When you say "full" I would imagine you are referring to liability insurance. If so, if you have an umbrella policy endorsed onto your homeowners (HO) policy at home you're OK. The coverage of the umbrella is world wide. Your HO policy would then be excess over the nominal liability limits afforded by the car rental company's carrier.

CDW (collision damage waiver or collision DEDUCTIBLE waiver)refers to physical damage of the vehicle. Some car rentals have a DEDUCTIBLE on this. if that's what you're referring to, you can get coverage from dollar one by using the premium rental service offered through AMEX.

You should be careful about umbrella policies. Most require that you subscribe to maximum coverage for the underlying policy such as car insurance.

My umbrella requires that I have half a million liability on my auto, boat, and homeowners policy. The umbrella covers over that. It is no big deal, the half a million is not that expensive on any of the policys. The umbrella itself is only a little over a hundred a year.

I have the Premium Rental service through AMEX and decline all insurance on the truck while on Bonaire. Of course, we also pay for truck with AMEX and thus covered.