Most of them cover it. My wife put the rear quarter of a Mercedes 320E into a garage pillar in France two years ago. Didn't cost us a penny. Believe me I was worried given the car. Pro tip: even if they give you the bigger car free, when in European cities, stick with the smaller one. Double check yours, and don't hit anything.
I'll do research on what is omitted by the CC's protection today.
Right now, I'm reminded of 2000, when I traveled to San Francisco for a conference that gathered folks from all across the US, because my employing Internet Consultancy was a roll-up that had C-suite executives from each of the companies that were widely dispersed and oh so Ill-fit together: NYC, SF, Irvine, Houston, Schaumburg, and even Hingham on Boston's South Shore. The latter was in deference to the ex-investment banker CEO who liked to sail and had even once issued a memo calling for the company to re-brand its consolidation under the corporate name "Raildown Gumbo." From that tidbit, who here would be surprised to learn that this mishmash of cultures, competencies, and geography - not long after the SF gathering - missed out on its 3rd round funding and in painful fashion joined many others in falling 'victim' to the dot.com bubble's burst? The last pieces got absorbed into another Omnicom property, maybe Agency, certainly not Razorfish. But all that's another story.
Anyway, I rented a bicycle when I got to San Francisco, and got talked into taking the optional insurance coverage. On Sunday, I was part of an insane party bus to Napa that began early in the morning with Bloody Marys and Screwdrivers and various shots, as we traveled to a vineyard that 'somehow' was not our rather nearby client for whom we'd built an award-winning web site. That was probably my, "When did you know this company would fail?" moment. But again, not the story here.
I awakened on Monday before sunrise, in order ride my bike and catch the sunrise from the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge: timed it perfectly.
I had to scramble to get back to Embarcadero for the big kick-off breakfast meeting, and as I rode with purpose on an asphalt path through Chrissy Field, I heard a time-stopping, "No-o-o-o," whereupon I felt a thud, and experienced myself flying forward long enough to wonder how badly things were going to end AND make some guesses that a dropped shoulder tuck-and-roll might be my best option to avoid catastrophic injury. I landed hard, but on the packed sand rather than the asphalt.
I stayed very still, as a crowd immediately rushed toward and gathered around me to find out if I was OK. First to reach me, and lick my face, was "Plumber," the 195 pound bull mastiff who I had broad-sided, thus launching my flight.
The dog had been so excited by the early morning visit to the coast that he broke free from his owners prematurely. My first slow movements let me know I wasn't paralyzed.
Soon, Lat & Suzy loaded Plumber & my bike into the pickup's bed, and I squeezed into the cab with the two apologetic others. We calculated that I had just about enough time to return the bike and get me - showered & appropriately business casual - to breakfast before the welcome remarks & presentations.
On the day I'd rented the bike, I was self-critical about falling for the upsell on the insurance. That morning, I loved the look of the guy when I offered him the quite-bowed & mangled front wheel and the rest of the beat up bicycle. As his sales pitch had promised, I could just give back the bike and walk away.
I was too achy to get another one, and, in fact, as I sat in the meeting trying to assess if I was actually injured, my phone rang with a call that informed me that my partner's breast biopsy was positive, and I was on a flight back to NYC by the end of the day.
The "just walk away" promise of the CDW sales pitch still resonates.
(And this is some of what I did when I settled into just staying at home on Tuesday until getting a rental car on Wednesday.)
