Budget Truck Rental of Henderson, Budget of Henderson, This location forces you to buy the optional insurance. Otherwise they will not rent to you. Henderson, Nevada

This location will force you to purchase the "optional" rental coverage.  If you refuse, they will refuse to rent you the truck.  The rental coverage is an additional $30/day on top of the $30/day rental fee.  This insurance is 100% profit for the owner.

They did this to me last year but I thought it was a fluke.  I recently went back to rent another truck from the same location and the clerk told me he would be calling my insurance company to verify my coverage!  And if I did not have rental car/truck insurance then I would have to buy their $30/day insurance.  I declined.  They would not rent me a truck.

I believe this practice is illegal.

My problem is this: the reservation process does not mention that they will force you to buy the insurance.  The reservation is made online or via telephone, then when consumer arrives to pick up the truck, they are slammed with the forced insurance.  Most people need the truck that day, so they go along with the fee.  This is not right.

If the insurance was priced reasonable I would not have a problem, but effectively doubling the daily rental rate is just plain wrong.

Upon calling Budget's national customer service, they basically don't care.  Only when I pressed the issue did they offer to file a "site complaint" with the dealer, but my feeling is that nothing will happen.