5 Questions which show why choosing car hire cover makes good sense

If you depend on your car on a daily basis, you may find yourself in a dilemma should it need to go to the panel beater for repairs after an accident. Insurance companies understand the inconvenience that comes with not having your car for a period of time and the high costs of hiring one to temporarily replace it. That is why there is an option to take cover for a hired car as a low-cost added-extra on your insurance policy – putting you into a hired car when you need it most.

If your car is written off, stolen or hijacked, it could be weeks until you are back in the driver’s seat. Having the car hire option on your policy means immediate relief of pressures and worries, equipping you to get on with life, like getting kids to school, going to work and doing the shopping.

These 5 questions will give you a clear idea of how to get car hire on your car insurance – and how it works.

1. When can I get a hired car?

If you have taken the car hire option on your car insurance, you’ll have access to a hired car when you lodge a claim.

Your insurance company, through a car hire company, will provide you with a hired car only if your car is:

• Damaged and is being repaired;


• Damaged and not drivable;


• Stolen or hijacked.

2. How long can I keep the car?

It’s important that you understand the period of time that your insurer will pay for the hired car. For example, at MiWay clients can select between 10, 20, 30, 45 or 60 days when taking the cover. The hired car is available for the maximum period you have selected, or until your claim is finalised if that happens before the time selected has expired.

Remember, you may not necessarily have your car repaired by the time the rental period is over. If this is the case, you are able to hire the car for longer, but at your own expense. As a MiWay client, you are able to extend your car hire after your selected rental period at a discounted rate, provided there is no break in the car hire period.

 

Tip: If your car has parts that are hard to come by, it is suggested that you select car hire for a longer period, as it could take a while for the panel beater to find the right parts to your car.

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3. What are the terms and conditions that I should know about?

Deposit and Insurance on the hired car

The deposit may be high but it is refundable once you return the hired car in the same condition you received it in from the car hire company, less e-toll fees and fuel, if applicable. You will also have to pay for running costs as well as the collection and delivery fees, if any. In the event of a claim on a hired car, you will be liable for the excess.

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Tip: Inspect the hired car very carefully when you pick it up. Note any damage, no matter how minor, to prevent being held liable upon returning it.

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4. My car broke down, can I get a hired car?

Car hire is an optional add-on cover for a specific car for which an additional premium is paid. You can only use the hired car when you have a valid claim on the car on which you took the car hire option. Mechanical and electrical failure are excluded from policy cover and are not seen as insured events, so you will not get a hired car through your insurance while your car is being attended to.

Some insurers, like MiWay, will provide you with an emergency roadside assistance benefit which will pay R500 towards a hired car if you are stranded more than 100 kilometres from your home. Be sure to check your policy schedule to see if you qualify for this MiHelp benefit.

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5. Can I get an automatic car?

If you prefer an automatic transmission, it can be specified when taking up the car hire cover with your insurance company. For drivers with special needs, car hire companies such as Avis have a limited amount of cars available.

Car hire cover with your car insurance can be a lifesaver, especially if you don’t have a second car in your household.

For more information on car insurance and car hire, visit www.miway.co.za

Also view:

Car Rental and Road Safety

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MiWay is an Authorised Financial Services Provider (Licence no: 33970)

MiWay Insurance Limited (‘MiWay’)is a direct, short-term insurance company, offering customers a range of short-term insurance products including motor, household and homeowners insurance as well as add-on products such as warranty cover and liability cover. MiWay’;s shareholder is Santam, a blue-chip JSE-listed company.

5 Questions which show why choosing car hire cover makes good sense

Question/s outside of the prescribed syllabus for the learners licence will only further corruption!

We often discuss the impact of crime on road safety and the need to root out any form of corruption! On the Arrive Alive website we have also discussed this in more detail on a page titled “Corruption, Traffic Enforcement and Road Safety”. Car insurance companies will agree that incompetent drivers  - or let us say those who should not be driving but who are licensed drivers after having “bought” their licences are also adding to road crashes and car insurance claims! We encourage strict processes and effective testing before a driving licence is awarded – but this process should be fair! With our high unemployment rate in South Africa it becomes ever more important for job seekers to have a driving licence. What will be the effect if the driving licence test is not fair and where it becomes nearly impossible for the average guy or girl to pass the test? This will only encourage corruption as more young drivers will seek illegal alternatives to get a driving licence! This is best illustrated with a question emailed to the Arrive Alive website Question: “Good day I am not sure where I should go in terms of complaints. I was advised to go to the Southern African institute of driving instructors.  I have recently wrote my learners twice and have failed. I wrote at Randburg licensing department in July and after test I found out that illegal questions that does not comply to the syllabus was in it. One of the questions were what is an exhaust silencer? I failed by one point and feel that it was extremely unfair.   I feel that they deliberately made me fail.I hear that this has been going on for quite some time,why doesn’;t anyone care? and the department of transport denies such questions in test! Please may you advise me. kind regards” Answer: We referred this to Pat Allen from the South African Institute of Driving Instructors and would like to share her response: Thank you for this referral with respect to question/s outside of the prescribed syllabus for the learners licence.

• Firstly, let me state emphatically that lawlessness on our roads is at an all-time high in the country. We agree that the public should know and apply the law thoroughly.


• We are constantly receiving similar complaints (see below) about the computerised learners licence tests. We so hoped the computerised tests would stamp out corruption and give learner drivers a fair knowledge test as experienced in first world countries, but unfortunately, that is not happening, especially in Gauteng.


• Despite forwarding complaints regularly to the National Department of Transport, Gauteng Provincial Department of Transport and the RTMC, since the inception of the Gauteng Computerised tests, the protestations and cries of the public who are failing repeatedly due to questions outside the prescribed syllabus are being ignored.


• Several authorities have been positively defensive, claiming the public are so used to passing easily without knowing the whole law, (which is actually quite true), yet no effort to remove the troublesome questions from the tests has been made. Apparently those responsible have not taken the trouble to actually read the prescribed syllabus.


• It seems impossible to sort this matter out. The authorities are ignoring all requests for intervention.


• One would imagine that the authorities would be appreciative of the law-abiding citizens, who do not consider buying licences, but try to do things legally, yet the public are hampered in their efforts by failing their learners licences over and over again, despite knowing their work very well. Many people use this as an excuse to buy licences and to driving illegally, which is not an acceptable option.


• Then, once they have eventually (hopefully) acquired a legal learner’s licence (with a more appropriate random selection of questions), and after a considerable delay and a lot more money than necessary has left their wallets, the struggle to find a test date sooner than 3 months ahead begins, in the hope that they will be ready to do their tests then, or risk forfeiting the moneys paid and re-booking months ahead, if not. Then the battle to find a legal driving instructor who has a high standard of integrity and training, and then to find a Driving Licence Testing Centre where tests are conducted according to the prescribed K53 test standard is a reality, and not a farce, begins.


• No. It is definitely not a straightforward process to acquire a legal driving licence in South Africa. At SAIDI have even experienced a member who has been compelled (by being attacked with assegais, spears and sticks with a young woman in the vehicle who was about to do a driving licence test), to join another Association, (Mpumalanga Driving School Association at a cost of R10 000.00), thereby contravening our Constitution AND BEING REQUIRED TO IGNORE THE CONSTITUTION OF THE COUNTRY WHERE FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION IS ENSHRINED WITHIN THE BILL OF RIGHTS, in order to be permitted to take his clients to a test centre in Mpumalanga, where he can get appointments within a week. He is so determined to continue this practise in order to survive financially, that he will risk being asked to step down as a SAIDI member. Being a breadwinner with 4 children to support, he can do nothing else.

Now I understand what is wrong with South Africa – no-one listens until people march in the streets breaking public property, (even school children now!), because those appointed to take responsibility for these matters simply ignore the public. This is not democracy working effectively. Speaking as a driving instructor with 35 years of experience, seen from my angle, road safety in South Africa is a hollow sham, despite billions being spent on numerous and ongoing expensive conferences, indabas and Summit meetings. So much for the Decade of Action. Unless the authorities start investigating these constant complaints, what hope is there of effective changes and fair learners licence tests? On behalf of SAIDI, we wish the complainant a test which is focussed on the prescribed syllabus next time. That is as good as it gets at the moment. If things change for the better, we will be the first to celebrate it with great enthusiasm. Let’s hope that someone will decide to correct the problems this time. If so, we applaud them.   Best regards,   P.A. Allen
  We would like to confirm that we will from our side strive to bring this to the attention of the decision makers at the highest level! Our road users deserve to share the roads with competent and licenced drivers  - and we need to address and remove any measures that promotes corruption in the road traffic environment! Also view: Crime as a Threat to Road Safety

Question/s outside of the prescribed syllabus for the learners licence will only further corruption!

Question/s outside of the prescribed syllabus for the learners licence will only further corruption!

We often discuss the impact of crime on road safety and the need to root out any form of corruption! On the Arrive Alive website we have also discussed this in more detail on a page titled “Corruption, Traffic Enforcement and Road Safety”. Car insurance companies will agree that incompetent drivers  - or let us say those who should not be driving but who are licensed drivers after having “bought” their licences are also adding to road crashes and car insurance claims! We encourage strict processes and effective testing before a driving licence is awarded – but this process should be fair! With our high unemployment rate in South Africa it becomes ever more important for job seekers to have a driving licence. What will be the effect if the driving licence test is not fair and where it becomes nearly impossible for the average guy or girl to pass the test? This will only encourage corruption as more young drivers will seek illegal alternatives to get a driving licence! This is best illustrated with a question emailed to the Arrive Alive website Question: “Good day I am not sure where I should go in terms of complaints. I was advised to go to the Southern African institute of driving instructors.  I have recently wrote my learners twice and have failed. I wrote at Randburg licensing department in July and after test I found out that illegal questions that does not comply to the syllabus was in it. One of the questions were what is an exhaust silencer? I failed by one point and feel that it was extremely unfair.   I feel that they deliberately made me fail.I hear that this has been going on for quite some time,why doesn’;t anyone care? and the department of transport denies such questions in test! Please may you advise me. kind regards” Answer: We referred this to Pat Allen from the South African Institute of Driving Instructors and would like to share her response: Thank you for this referral with respect to question/s outside of the prescribed syllabus for the learners licence.

• Firstly, let me state emphatically that lawlessness on our roads is at an all-time high in the country. We agree that the public should know and apply the law thoroughly.


• We are constantly receiving similar complaints (see below) about the computerised learners licence tests. We so hoped the computerised tests would stamp out corruption and give learner drivers a fair knowledge test as experienced in first world countries, but unfortunately, that is not happening, especially in Gauteng.


• Despite forwarding complaints regularly to the National Department of Transport, Gauteng Provincial Department of Transport and the RTMC, since the inception of the Gauteng Computerised tests, the protestations and cries of the public who are failing repeatedly due to questions outside the prescribed syllabus are being ignored.


• Several authorities have been positively defensive, claiming the public are so used to passing easily without knowing the whole law, (which is actually quite true), yet no effort to remove the troublesome questions from the tests has been made. Apparently those responsible have not taken the trouble to actually read the prescribed syllabus.


• It seems impossible to sort this matter out. The authorities are ignoring all requests for intervention.


• One would imagine that the authorities would be appreciative of the law-abiding citizens, who do not consider buying licences, but try to do things legally, yet the public are hampered in their efforts by failing their learners licences over and over again, despite knowing their work very well. Many people use this as an excuse to buy licences and to driving illegally, which is not an acceptable option.


• Then, once they have eventually (hopefully) acquired a legal learner’s licence (with a more appropriate random selection of questions), and after a considerable delay and a lot more money than necessary has left their wallets, the struggle to find a test date sooner than 3 months ahead begins, in the hope that they will be ready to do their tests then, or risk forfeiting the moneys paid and re-booking months ahead, if not. Then the battle to find a legal driving instructor who has a high standard of integrity and training, and then to find a Driving Licence Testing Centre where tests are conducted according to the prescribed K53 test standard is a reality, and not a farce, begins.


• No. It is definitely not a straightforward process to acquire a legal driving licence in South Africa. At SAIDI have even experienced a member who has been compelled (by being attacked with assegais, spears and sticks with a young woman in the vehicle who was about to do a driving licence test), to join another Association, (Mpumalanga Driving School Association at a cost of R10 000.00), thereby contravening our Constitution AND BEING REQUIRED TO IGNORE THE CONSTITUTION OF THE COUNTRY WHERE FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION IS ENSHRINED WITHIN THE BILL OF RIGHTS, in order to be permitted to take his clients to a test centre in Mpumalanga, where he can get appointments within a week. He is so determined to continue this practise in order to survive financially, that he will risk being asked to step down as a SAIDI member. Being a breadwinner with 4 children to support, he can do nothing else.

Now I understand what is wrong with South Africa – no-one listens until people march in the streets breaking public property, (even school children now!), because those appointed to take responsibility for these matters simply ignore the public. This is not democracy working effectively. Speaking as a driving instructor with 35 years of experience, seen from my angle, road safety in South Africa is a hollow sham, despite billions being spent on numerous and ongoing expensive conferences, indabas and Summit meetings. So much for the Decade of Action. Unless the authorities start investigating these constant complaints, what hope is there of effective changes and fair learners licence tests? On behalf of SAIDI, we wish the complainant a test which is focussed on the prescribed syllabus next time. That is as good as it gets at the moment. If things change for the better, we will be the first to celebrate it with great enthusiasm. Let’s hope that someone will decide to correct the problems this time. If so, we applaud them.   Best regards,   P.A. Allen
  We would like to confirm that we will from our side strive to bring this to the attention of the decision makers at the highest level! Our road users deserve to share the roads with competent and licenced drivers  - and we need to address and remove any measures that promotes corruption in the road traffic environment! Also view: Crime as a Threat to Road Safety

Question/s outside of the prescribed syllabus for the learners licence will only further corruption!

Question/s outside of the prescribed syllabus for the learners licence will only further corruption!

We often discuss the impact of crime on road safety and the need to root out any form of corruption! On the Arrive Alive website we have also discussed this in more detail on a page titled “Corruption, Traffic Enforcement and Road Safety”. Car insurance companies will agree that incompetent drivers  - or let us say those who should not be driving but who are licensed drivers after having “bought” their licences are also adding to road crashes and car insurance claims! We encourage strict processes and effective testing before a driving licence is awarded – but this process should be fair! With our high unemployment rate in South Africa it becomes ever more important for job seekers to have a driving licence. What will be the effect if the driving licence test is not fair and where it becomes nearly impossible for the average guy or girl to pass the test? This will only encourage corruption as more young drivers will seek illegal alternatives to get a driving licence! This is best illustrated with a question emailed to the Arrive Alive website Question: “Good day I am not sure where I should go in terms of complaints. I was advised to go to the Southern African institute of driving instructors.  I have recently wrote my learners twice and have failed. I wrote at Randburg licensing department in July and after test I found out that illegal questions that does not comply to the syllabus was in it. One of the questions were what is an exhaust silencer? I failed by one point and feel that it was extremely unfair.   I feel that they deliberately made me fail.I hear that this has been going on for quite some time,why doesn’;t anyone care? and the department of transport denies such questions in test! Please may you advise me. kind regards” Answer: We referred this to Pat Allen from the South African Institute of Driving Instructors and would like to share her response: Thank you for this referral with respect to question/s outside of the prescribed syllabus for the learners licence.

• Firstly, let me state emphatically that lawlessness on our roads is at an all-time high in the country. We agree that the public should know and apply the law thoroughly.


• We are constantly receiving similar complaints (see below) about the computerised learners licence tests. We so hoped the computerised tests would stamp out corruption and give learner drivers a fair knowledge test as experienced in first world countries, but unfortunately, that is not happening, especially in Gauteng.


• Despite forwarding complaints regularly to the National Department of Transport, Gauteng Provincial Department of Transport and the RTMC, since the inception of the Gauteng Computerised tests, the protestations and cries of the public who are failing repeatedly due to questions outside the prescribed syllabus are being ignored.


• Several authorities have been positively defensive, claiming the public are so used to passing easily without knowing the whole law, (which is actually quite true), yet no effort to remove the troublesome questions from the tests has been made. Apparently those responsible have not taken the trouble to actually read the prescribed syllabus.


• It seems impossible to sort this matter out. The authorities are ignoring all requests for intervention.


• One would imagine that the authorities would be appreciative of the law-abiding citizens, who do not consider buying licences, but try to do things legally, yet the public are hampered in their efforts by failing their learners licences over and over again, despite knowing their work very well. Many people use this as an excuse to buy licences and to driving illegally, which is not an acceptable option.


• Then, once they have eventually (hopefully) acquired a legal learner’s licence (with a more appropriate random selection of questions), and after a considerable delay and a lot more money than necessary has left their wallets, the struggle to find a test date sooner than 3 months ahead begins, in the hope that they will be ready to do their tests then, or risk forfeiting the moneys paid and re-booking months ahead, if not. Then the battle to find a legal driving instructor who has a high standard of integrity and training, and then to find a Driving Licence Testing Centre where tests are conducted according to the prescribed K53 test standard is a reality, and not a farce, begins.


• No. It is definitely not a straightforward process to acquire a legal driving licence in South Africa. At SAIDI have even experienced a member who has been compelled (by being attacked with assegais, spears and sticks with a young woman in the vehicle who was about to do a driving licence test), to join another Association, (Mpumalanga Driving School Association at a cost of R10 000.00), thereby contravening our Constitution AND BEING REQUIRED TO IGNORE THE CONSTITUTION OF THE COUNTRY WHERE FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION IS ENSHRINED WITHIN THE BILL OF RIGHTS, in order to be permitted to take his clients to a test centre in Mpumalanga, where he can get appointments within a week. He is so determined to continue this practise in order to survive financially, that he will risk being asked to step down as a SAIDI member. Being a breadwinner with 4 children to support, he can do nothing else.

Now I understand what is wrong with South Africa – no-one listens until people march in the streets breaking public property, (even school children now!), because those appointed to take responsibility for these matters simply ignore the public. This is not democracy working effectively. Speaking as a driving instructor with 35 years of experience, seen from my angle, road safety in South Africa is a hollow sham, despite billions being spent on numerous and ongoing expensive conferences, indabas and Summit meetings. So much for the Decade of Action. Unless the authorities start investigating these constant complaints, what hope is there of effective changes and fair learners licence tests? On behalf of SAIDI, we wish the complainant a test which is focussed on the prescribed syllabus next time. That is as good as it gets at the moment. If things change for the better, we will be the first to celebrate it with great enthusiasm. Let’s hope that someone will decide to correct the problems this time. If so, we applaud them.   Best regards,   P.A. Allen
  We would like to confirm that we will from our side strive to bring this to the attention of the decision makers at the highest level! Our road users deserve to share the roads with competent and licenced drivers  - and we need to address and remove any measures that promotes corruption in the road traffic environment! Also view: Crime as a Threat to Road Safety

Question/s outside of the prescribed syllabus for the learners licence will only further corruption!