Fellow insurance bloggers over at RiskProf recently cited this MSN Slate article on the topic of rental car insurance—namely if it was actually worth the money or not.

Slate columnist, Tim Harford, makes the kind of points that are too spot on for me to paraphrase here, but the gist is that coverages like rental car insurance aren't really worth it.

Here, Harford shares his recent experience at a rental car counter:

This was a strikingly overpriced offering. For each day's rental I was being asked to pay $10 to protect me from the risk of paying $900. The mathematics are hardly difficult: The insurance is fair only if I crash into something every 90 days. If I believed that, I wouldn't get behind the wheel at all.

The better solution: ask your insurance agent if your auto insurance policy will cover you in a rental car. If not, you can usually get this coverage added to your policy for much less than ten dollars per day. Of course, on a larger scale, I agree with Harford when he says that the best solution is to make sure you are properly insured against major catastrophes like a hurricane, house fire or severe accident in your vehicle--and try not to sweat the smaller things like a dent in your rental car.

Harford's latest column is truly a must-read, as it will probably change the way you think about risk and insurance in general. And for more on unnecessary insurance coverage, check out our article, Unecessary Insurance Coverage: Policies to Avoid.