Most US drivers in dark on new car insurance plans

More than half of U.S. drivers don’t fully read their car insurance policies before signing on, according to Enterprise.

New research recently released by the company based on a survey of 1,046 U.S. drivers found that 53 percent respondents fail to read their entire policy when purchasing new coverage.

Drivers commonly don’t have a solid plan for what they will drive in the event of needed repairs, nor do they know if they’re covered for rental car reimbursement, according to Enterprise’s Mary Mahoney.

"Many drivers might not know it, but if they're involved in one of the millions of auto accidents per year and their car needs to be repaired, the average repair time is two weeks. What would you do without access to a vehicle for two weeks, and how would it make you feel? That's a question we wanted to explore as a way to shed light on the importance of rental car reimbursement coverage – insurance coverage that pays for the cost of a rental when your car is in the shop," said Mahoney, vice president North American insurance replacement division for Enterprise.

Only 32 percent of survey respondents told Enterprise that they are "very confident" that they are knowledgeable of everything in their insurance policies.

Less than four in 10 said they are familiar with “rental reimbursement coverage” as a term.

Rental car reimbursement coverage is usually not included in most standard policies, but rather an add-on feature most of the time, according to Enterprise.

"It turns out that drivers would go to great extremes to maintain access to a vehicle,"  Mahoney said.

The study also found that millennial drivers, specifically, would rather go without social media for a week (50 percent), lose an hour of sleep each day (41 percent) and skip one meal a day, (39 percent) than go for an extended period without access to a vehicle.

"To eliminate that risk, they can call their insurance agent to make sure they're covered for rental car reimbursement," added Mahoney.

All research participants were over the age of 21 and surveyed online through July 13-16.