Originally Posted by guv1976

[SIZE=1]"If, based in the USA, I didn't have car insurance, say because I lived and worked in a city with real public transportation and astronomical parking rates, then I couldn't decline liability on rentals in the USA."

Sure you could, as long as you were renting in a state other than California. It might not be prudent to do so, especially if you had substantial assets, because the minimum state liability coverage that the car-rental companies provide in every state other than California is paltry. (In California, it's zero.) But I'm sure that plenty of people without insurance decline the SLI coverage everyday.