A family hiring a compact family car in Tenerife, over the Easter week, could hand over an additional £315* at the rental desk almost tripling their original hire car cost of £109.

Purchasing excess car hire insurance (at £132), extra driver’s cover (at £62), a child’s car seat (at £56) and a Sat Nav (at £65) from the rental desk will push the overall cost up by an additional 189%.

iCarhireinsurance.com, the leading stand alone provider of excess car hire insurance, has compared the prices of five rental companies at five popular destinations for the Easter week, 14 - 21 April 2014, to reveal the hidden 'extra' costs at the rental desk.

Looking at the destinations of Larnaca, Nice, Tenerife, Milan and Barcelona, iCarhireinsurance.com found great variations in the costs that travellers would be paying at each destination.

Most expensive / cheapest place to hire a car: The most expensive place to hire a car for just a week is Milan, where the average week's rental across all five providers is £457, and the cheapest is Tenerife, costing £175, but travellers are warned to factor in the cost of extras bought from the rental desk in their overall budgeting, including compulsory charges like road taxes.

Milan almost tops £1000 for week: Travellers to Milan could be looking at a week's car hire and extras costing almost £1000. Hiring with Hertz, the car rental cost is £520, the excess car hire insurance, bought from the rental company, is £190, adding an extra driver is £60, a child's car seat is £101 and the hire of a sat nav costs £90 - all totalling £961.

Road Tax: Some extras are compulsory, for eggs-ample hiring from Sixt a traveller is required to pay £18 for road tax for the week in Nice and £14 in Milan.

Excess Car Hire Insurance – “Buying excess insurance from the rental desk will leave a severe dent in your Easter holiday budget and will not always cover vulnerable parts of the car. Make sure you always check the small print and shop around for the best cover at the best price.”

If excess waiver insurance is not purchased by a hire car customer they could be liable for up to £1500 if the car gets damaged or even stolen and when even a small scratch can costs hundreds to repair it pays to be properly covered. The highest cost for a week's excess insurance bought from a rental car company was with Hertz in Milan costing £190 for the week– this is over nine times the cost of an iCarhireinsurance.com policy at £21 for the week (£2.99 a day).

iCarhireinsurance.com’s policies are also more comprehensive and cover vulnerable parts of the vehicle which are frequently excluded from car hire companies’ policies.

An Extra Driver - The price for adding an extra driver, who is under 25 years, costs an eye-watering £189 in Nice with Avis, while adding an extra driver over this age costs £49. Expect to pay between £40 - £70 for an extra driver, but considerably more for under 25s.

A Child’s Car Seat - If you can, take your own car seat otherwise you could be looking at paying up to £140 in Milan for instance. The cheapest car seat can be hired in Tenerife at around £20, but expect to pay between £50 - £60.

Sat Nav - Don't forget the sat nav, as you could be paying over £90 to hire one in Larnaca, Barcelona or Milan. The average price to hire a sat nav across all destinations is £71, so always bring your own.

“Extras at the rental desk can add hundreds to your holiday budget. Make sure you plan in advance, buying your excess insurance from a specialist provider, like iCarhireinsurance.com (saving up to £170), take your own child car seat (saving around £60) and sat nav (saving another £75) and try not to add other drivers to the policy unless you really need to (a saving of around £50) - an overall saving of approximately £350,” said Ernesto Suarez, founder and CEO at iCarhireinsurance.com.

- ENDS -