UKC

I'm heading to El Chorro at the end of April and I'm looking for some car hire recommendations. I'm a bit worried about getting stung for excess fees if the car gets damaged. Any way of avoiding theses fees? I'm also looking for climbing insurance suggestions. Any help would be appreciated. 

Cheers

Take out a separate policy.  I've used this company: https://www.icarhireinsurance.com in the past but there are others.

Al

I have used this company for European car insurance for a few years now. It's pretty cheap and you can go on multiple trips per year without paying any extra. I haven't had to claim so can't attest to their response.

http://www.insurance4carhire.com/

I have had to claim. Their communication wasn't great but they coughed up pretty quickly.

WRT car hire companies - my recent preference has been to go for the budget brand associated with a big name car hire company. Last 2 trips the cars we've had have been distinctly pre-owned with many existing dings and scratches. The plus side is that the inspection on return has been cursory and the chance of any particular ding you happen to have added being noteworthy is much reduced!

insurance4carhire have paid out twice to me without any fuss so am pleased with them.

malagacarhire are really easy to deal with and do not try and spring charges on you at the desk. Very short bus ride from the airport and frequent shuttle buses.

We have had zero hassle and good experiences on last two trips from Europcar (Alicante & Turin).

Clean new cars.

We took out separate excess insurance with:

https://www.reducemyexcess.co.uk/

Didn't claim.

For climbing, biking & winter sports (we have annual family policy) we use Dogtag insurance.

Haven't claimed

Austrian Alpine club climbing insurance, £50 a year.

 doyouspain.com is great for finding cheap deals (I don't know how it works, I've had cars for a couple of euros a day), as long as you take out one of the annual excess insurance policies mentioned above.

I was in southern Spain recently, I opted to hire a camper from WildCampers (http://www.wildcampers.com, they're pretty cheap and really nice people, great vans too), saved on car hire and accommodation, plus if the weather is crap you can just drive somewhere else. PIcked up from Seville, they may do other airports in the area.

Just a thought....

Steve (no connection to WildCampers, just a happy customer)