LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwired - Jul 25, 2013) - In 2012 an estimated £434 million was spent on rental desk excess cover by UK drivers of rental vehicles at home and abroad, but new YouGov research from iCarhireinsurance.com, the leading provider of standalone excess insurance, has found that drivers could have saved £345 million in total if they had bought it online from an independent provider before picking up the car.

Rental desks charge on average almost five times more than online providers for excess insurance, but the worst offenders can charge more than eight times, a truly eye-watering amount. e.g., Excess cover from Avis for a week in Corfu in June costs £204.64 (£25.58 a day) for a standard family car, that's £180 more than buying a stand-alone policy through independent UK websites such as iCarhireinsurance.com before pick-up.

The YouGov research found that 33% of the UK adult population hired a vehicle in 2012, On average these people hired vehicles for 6.25 days in 2012 at an average daily cost of £14.62 per day and almost a third of these (29%) have purchased excess insurance. It is therefore estimated that, assuming everyone bought their excess insurance from the hire desk, £434m was spent by UK travellers in 2012 to protect themselves against high excess charges of up to £2,000 a time for accidental damage and theft.

An iCarhireinsurance.com daily excess policy costs £2.99 a day, so drivers paid £141 million (or £11.63 per rental day) more than they had to. Customers taking a two week rental or planning additional trips later in the year could have been even better off by purchasing an annual policy at only £39.99. iCarhireinsurance.com's products are also more comprehensive than those sold at car rental desks.

Ernesto Suarez, founder and CEO of iCarhireinsurance.com said, "The amount of money that can be saved just by sorting out your excess in advance is incredible. Not only are our policies a fifth of the average price of those offered by the rental companies, they also cover the most vulnerable parts of the vehicle, which are usually excluded from the rental companies' policies."

For full details of the calculations visit www.icarhireinsurance.com.