So,you are ready to take that road trip. Your bags are packed, your reservations are made, you get to the car rental counter, and then the agent asks you that famous question. "DO YOU WANT TO TAKE THE COVERAGES?" - And there it is, that deer in the headlights look!

Well hopefully this will help clear up some of the confusion, and maybe a bit of that panic at the same time. The first thing to know is that any reputable rental car company will not use a blanket statement to refer to their products as insurance, because not all products are insurances. But we will get into that in a moment.

Before you head out you are going to want to look over your auto insurance and verify your deductibles and liability limits. Okay, now that you have done that let's talk about the coverages that most rental car companies offer.

The first thing we are going to talk about is called the Loss Damage, Collision Damage, or Physical Damage Waiver, depending on the company that you are renting from. This is not insurance. This is an actual waiver of damage that you are purchasing from the rental car company. This usually covers the car entirely including things that you often don't think about such as stone chips to the windshield or hood of the car and flat tires. Remember, even you own auto insurance does not cover tires.

With this coverage you are able to walk away without ever getting your insurance company involved. What you should do is weigh out the price of this coverage against your deductible and what a claim might do to your insurance. Or, if you own an older car, whether you even have collision on your policy; or do you just carry liability. This item is usually a pretty good deal.

Next is an insurance that would be secondary to your insurance, covering the liabilty end of things. If you have an umbrella policy this may not be for you; but if you are like most people you carry the minimum liability limitations required by your state. What this does it gives you additional insurance after your limits have been exhausted up to the amout of the policy that the rental car company is offering.

This is an item to consider if you just have the liability minimums or will be travelling with non-family members. Let's just say that you and a group of friends went on an outing in a van and an accident was to occur. As you can image, your personal policy limits could be exhausted rather quickly. (Just a common sense note her, the reason non-family members

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