One extremely important thing to look out for when hiring a vehicle in Zimbabwe

Brief Background

One question that I get more than any other question is, “… but Eve, What should I really consider when hiring a vehicle to ensure that I will not end up with problems that I may not even be aware of because I really want to get to all these Game parks you’re always posting about?“. In all honesty, I had never hired a vehicle my whole life. For some reason, hiring a vehicle always seemed foreign to me, call it fear of the unknown. So I always used public transport until I had a car.

Admittedly though, public transport has many limitations (which deserve their own blog post), but one example of such is how you end up missing out on going to so many game parks & nature reserves whose routes are not popular enough for public transport to operate everyday. And now that I have my own vehicle, I’ve also got to realise that, you may not always have it ready for your trips. Sometimes it takes a little longer than expected with the mechanic for servicing. Meanwhile, you still have to go on that particular trip because you had already made all your bookings for it & cancelling it only makes you lose a lot of money. So knowing about car rental as an option does not only make your life so much easier but it is vital too.

There are so many car rental companies in Zimbabwe, many are relatively small companies so not so well known. Below is therefore the one thing you should look out for when choosing a car rental company to get your services from. Just because a company is popular does not automatically mean that it is the best. In most cases it simply means that the marketing team is doing an amazing job.

*Featuring in this blog post are pictures from one of the trips I did with a hired vehicle. It was just a beautiful relaxing day 🙂*

The ONE thing to consider is that the vehicle is on Full coverage car insurance

Full coverage car insurance is when the insurance includes liability, collision and comprehensive insurances.

Liability insurance – this one is pretty much compulsory by law. It pays for damages in the cases where you are the one who caused the accident. All insurance companies will have this one. You will just have to make sure that it’s up to date, it hasn’t expired.
Collision insurance – this one covers you when an accident happens while you’re in motion & alone. E.g. when you accidentally hit a fence or a light post. Most car hire companies will tell you that they do not cover accidents that happen when you are alone. So just be aware of this.
Comprehensive insurance – this one covers damages to your vehicle caused when you’re not in motion. E.g. when a tree falls on the vehicle during a windstorm. Many car hire options again do not cover you on this one either.

So when making a decision on which car rental company to opt for, you need to factor in all 3 forms of insurance coverage. A number of car rental companies will use the words “full coverage car insurance” but actually may not offer all 3 insurances and those that do have some seriously heavy rates. At least let me say, their rates are just not meant for people with a pocket size like mine.

One thing that we noticed across all companies on the full coverage insurance though is that, you will pay 10% of the costs which is still a huge bargain considering the thousands of dollars that will be required to cover damages if the vehicle was not on full coverage insurance.

Always remember that Terms & Conditions apply at all times. So make sure you understand every single thing on these Ts & Cs forms before you sign anything or pick up your vehicle to avoid any unnecessary problems.