Campervan hire: prices, insurance, excess and the handover check

What does a price ‘from’ really hide?

£49 a night. That is the price shown for a Volkswagen California Beach on the UK rates page of Roadsurfer, a German hire company that also rents from the UK; underneath, two words: ‘Excluding fees’ [1]. Daze Away, a campervan hire firm in Surrey, starts at £110 a night and says its prices are fully inclusive [2]. Between private owners, Quirky Campers, a platform for individually owned campervans, puts the usual starting point at around £90 to £100 a night [3]. Three figures, and already three definitions: a price before fees, an all-in price and a broad guide.

None of them tells you what your week will cost. Quirky Campers says as much about its own: they are ‘broad planning figures only’ [3]. This guide therefore takes the opposite route. It starts from the terms and conditions, which run to 39 pages at Yescapa and Goboony [4], and works back up to the price. It expands on the ‘Choosing’ step of our guide to campervan trips, which advises hiring before you buy.

Hire company or private owner: who are you signing with?

Two routes share the market. A hire company rents out its own vehicles under its own terms: that is the case of Roadsurfer, of VWFS Rent-a-Car, run by Volkswagen Financial Services UK, and of Bunk Campers, among those we read. A platform, by contrast, puts people in touch. Yescapa and Goboony connect owners, private or professional, with travellers, so that rental agreements can be made between them; the two brands have shared the same terms since 14 October 2026 [4]. Quirky Campers works with privately owned vans too [3].

A discreet trap: a platform also hosts hire companies. On Yescapa, ‘PRO’ appears next to their name; the company then provides the insurance and its own contract, and the platform warns that it will not be able to intervene or mediate if there is an incident [8].

What does a week for two cost, fees included?

The price moves with the calendar first. Roadsurfer warns that its prices are for guidance only and vary with the length of the trip, when you book and the pick-up location, and that most of its campervan hires have a 3-night minimum, longer at some locations in peak season [1]. VWFS Rent-a-Car asks you to contact your nearest location to confirm the minimum length of hire [9]. Then come the lines missing from the headline price: protection, booking or service fees, mileage, cleaning, the dog and fuel.

Let’s do the maths for two people and seven nights in Roadsurfer’s VW California Beach, at the headline price of £49 a night, with the Basic protection package, which its terms include automatically in every booking [1] [7]. Add 620 miles (1,000 km), an assumption, at the 7.6 litres per 100 km that Blacksheep, a French hire network, lists for its own VW California [10], and diesel at £1.99 a litre: that is the UK average pump price for the week of 2 November 2026, published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero [11].

Read the bottom lines before the top one. Between Basic and Max, the excess falls from £2,500 to £130, for a price the page does not give (our calculation). VWFS Rent-a-Car does the reverse: it publishes the price of its cover, £15 a day to bring the excess on a California Ocean from £1,250 to £750 where the location offers it, but not the price of the van [12]. Between private owners, Quirky Campers’ sample budget for a couple puts a week of campervan hire at £700 to £1,200 [3]; a platform’s planning range does not compare with a headline price. For a van of your own, our guide to what a campervan really costs works out a year, line by line.

On a platform, the price covers the payment to the owner, the insurance and the website’s service fees, Yescapa explains, and the owner sets their own rates [13]. Its terms describe a service fee that may be a percentage of the rental price, a fixed amount per day or per booking, or a combination of the two [4]. We found no published rate.

Insurance, excess, deposit: who pays what when there is damage?

Third party insurance is the legal minimum to drive on UK roads: it covers damage or injury you cause to others, not repairs to your own vehicle, GOV.UK points out [14]. With a hire company, the rest comes from the collision damage waiverThe cover that usually comes as standard with a hire: it caps what you pay for damage to the vehicle at the excess, and often leaves out items such as tyres or glass. that usually comes as standard [15], which caps your share at an excessThe amount left for you to pay for each claim for which you are responsible, or where no third party is identified., and from a depositA sum held or taken before you leave, which pays the excess and the charges set out in the contract. held on your card.

At three of the operators we read, the basic excess runs from £1,250 to £2,500, and paid options bring it down to £750 or £130, depending on the operator [12] [3] [1]. On Yescapa, a vehicle registered in the UK is insured through a partnership with First Underwriting [17], and the excess depends on the country of registration and on the plan chosen, most policies offering a Basic and a Premium option [18]. Quirky Campers says the excess usually ranges from £1,500 to £2,000, with most hires at £1,500 [3].

Enlarge diagram

Roof, underside, interior, tyres: what the cover leaves out

A low excess reassures; an exclusion makes it irrelevant. Bunk Campers, which hires from Greater London, Edinburgh, Belfast and Dublin, writes that its security deposit does not cover damage to any part of the vehicle more than 182 cm (6 ft) off the ground, damage to the underside, or damage to the windscreen, mirrors and tyres unless that protection is included: for these, the guest is liable for the full cost of repair [19]. Roadsurfer’s UK rates page draws a similar line: you are ‘responsible for the full cost’ of damage to the roof and the awning, improper filling of the water or fuel tanks, driving off paved roads or in unauthorised countries [1].

The borders are not always where you expect. The same page puts weather damage, underbody and body damage, interior damage, windscreen and tyres under the excess [1]; its terms, however, leave out of the cover damage to the awning, the interior or the pop-up roof caused by operating errors, and no protection package can limit roof damage from ignoring clearance heights [7]. The insurance policies Yescapa lists exclude, in every country, tyre damage, personal belongings, non-fixed appliances and damage from roads or areas unsuited to the vehicle’s dimensions [18].

Enlarge photo

Will your credit card, or an excess policy, cover a hired campervan?

GOV.UK’s guidance for hirers is practical: if you want extra cover, take out excess insurance before you travel; you do not have to buy it from the rental company, and it is often much cheaper from an independent provider, though the company may still ask for a deposit, take the repairs from it and leave you to claim them back [15]. The policies, for their part, go into the detail.

Two excess insurers say in so many words where campervans stand. Swinton, whose van hire excess insurance reimburses up to £6,500, states: ‘We cannot cover campervans or minibuses under our Van Hire Excess Insurance.’ [20] Questor, by contrast, sells a dedicated motorhome or campervan hire policy, for a single hire agreement of up to 45 days, which excludes any vehicle worth more than £100,000 or heavier than 7.5 tonnes [21].

As for bank cards, we found no UK card whose published terms include cover for a hired campervan. Whatever you hold, only the insurer of your card or policy can settle the question, and the answer is worth having in writing before you turn down the hire company’s option.

What age, what licence and how many drivers?

If you passed your test on or after 1 January 1997, a car licence covers petrol and diesel vehicles of up to 3,500 kg maximum authorised mass; between 3,500 and 7,500 kg, you need category C1 [22]. For heavier motorhomes, see our guide to 4.25-tonne motorhomes on a car licence. The hire company then adds its own conditions, from 21 to 25 years old at the minimum and two years with a full licence where the operators we read state it [1] [23] [24].

Only the named driver is covered. On Yescapa, the insurance included covers a single driver, and a second can be added when booking [25]; at Roadsurfer, you are liable for all damage or loss caused by an unauthorised driver, who has no cover from the protection packages [7].

Can you cancel? No legal right, only the contract

That leaves what each contract provides, and the gaps are wide. The table sums up cancellation by the hirer, with and without the option that softens it, according to the terms of three operators [7] [29] [4].

Roadsurfer’s line deserves a second reading: without the option, cancelling two weeks before departure refunds the travel fee, not the hire [7]. On Yescapa, cancellation insurance costs 6% of the total paid and only applies to a defined unforeseeable event, with written proof, such as serious illness; bad weather is not one of them [30].

At pick-up and return: the condition report that protects you

The condition reportA record of the vehicle’s condition made with the hire company at pick-up, then compared at return, signed by both sides. is the document everyone rereads in a dispute. At VWFS Rent-a-Car, signing it means you agree with the condition it shows, and you are responsible for any new damage found when the vehicle is inspected on return [29]. Yescapa makes the rental contract, which contains an inventory, compulsory, and warns that the insurer will refuse any claim if it has not been correctly filled out and signed [31]. GOV.UK’s guidance adds the habits: allow time to inspect, take photos or video, report any defect while still on the company’s premises, and keep your own signed copy [15].

Enlarge diagram

• Dated photos of each side, the roof and the underside, in daylight or under good lighting
• Mileage and the fuel and AdBlue gauges written on the report
• Gas, fresh water, grey water and cassette checked, and emptying explained
• Tyres, spare wheel, windscreen and mirrors looked at closely
• Interior, mattress, lockers and equipment checked against the inventory
• Every defect written on the signed report, with a copy for you
• Countries planned, second driver and pet written into the contract

At return, the bill follows the same order, and each contract has its own scale [1] [32] [29]. One last thing to know: damage can still be claimed after you hand back the keys. Roadsurfer inspects for new damage separately, without you, and keeps you liable for hidden damage it finds within 48 hours of return, while Yescapa gives you 72 hours to report damage that happened during the hire [7] [33].

Going abroad, bringing the dog: two lines of the contract

Before you plan the route, read the list of countries. Roadsurfer allows the European Union, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Great Britain and several Balkan countries, but excludes among others Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine, with a €500 penalty, cut to €150 if you return straight away [7]. VWFS Rent-a-Car wants your request at least 7 working days before you travel, then issues a ‘vehicle on hire’ certificate, the VE103B [29], and charges £25 a day for the paperwork [12]: GOV.UK confirms that a hired vehicle driven abroad needs a VE103 certificate [34]. On a platform, the owner must allow foreign travel and the destination must be covered by the insurance [35]. Once off the ferry, see what French law says about sleeping in a van and the rules country by country in Europe.

With a dog, nothing is a given either. Roadsurfer adds a one-off dog fee from £119 and charges £135 for pet hair in a vehicle booked without it; its rates page says all its hires can be booked as dog-friendly, while its terms reserve pets for campervans designated for them [1] [7]. VWFS Rent-a-Car does not allow animals other than assistance dogs [29]. On Yescapa, the listing sets the rule, and travelling with pets against it costs £50 [32].

Compare two hires on excess, deposit and exclusions, never on the nightly price.

Julien de Jurquet

Campervans, motorhomes, cycling and calculators

Julien de Jurquet writes for Outfarer about campervans, motorhomes, cycling and calculators. He reads instruction manuals to the very end and never lets a figure through without its unit, so that your choices rest on sums rather than promises.

All their articles