How to book a hire car in Spain when you’re younger than 25 years old.

The vast majority of Car hire companies limit their services to only drivers who are older than 25 years of age. What are the motives behind this restriction?

You get to 18 years old and finally you can start to travel without the need to be accompanied by your parents.

You start to prepare what will be your first holiday as an adult; where to go, accommodation, how to get there and in most cases how to get around and get the most out of your stay once you get to your destination… but alas, the last part isn’t an option.

Being an adult does not imply that you have the experience and responsibility necessary for a car hire company to confide in your skills as a new driver, in fact, booking a car with most car hire companies is only available to those who are older than 24; but why is this restriction in place?

Is it legal to prohibit hiring a car to under 25’s?

According to the consumer associations, it is illegal for a company to not want to hire somebody a car due to the age of the driver, yet these hire car companies feel they need to have this restriction in place, why?

It’s very simple; the car hire companies are not directly responsible for this restriction. In the majority of cases it is the insurance companies that don’t offer cover for cars driven by under 25’s.

The same occurs when insuring your own vehicle, the age and experience of the driver are the basic factors that affect the cover of the insurance. Most insurance companies don’t want to run the risk of covering new drivers, even less when the car isn’t their own, and thus, not their responsibility.

So for these motives, the majority of services of car hire in Murcia, Madrid, Alicante etc. will not let you book if the drivers age is not over 24 years old.

Some companies offer the solution

Conscious of the problem imposed on an important area of their potential customers, some car hire companies have decided to offer an intermediate solution.

After arriving to an agreement with their insurance companies, they will now accept reservations for new drivers but only by contracting an additional insurance for under 25’s or for those who have had their driving licence less than 2 years.

VictoriaCars has assumed this initiative.

The national Spanish car hire company Victoria Cars has put into motion this new feature for their services of car hire in Madrid, Murcia, Alicante… with the aim of not leaving any customer without a hire car.

More information at http://www.victoriacars.com