Originally Posted by RichardInSF
In all states -- even California -- the minimum liability coverage required by law is included in rentals by non-U.S. residents. However, they may point out how low the minimum is and try to get you to buy coverage to raise the limits on the liability insurance, but it will typically be a huge-ripoff.
Supplementary liability insurance is the one thing I will always,
always get.
For most of us, the fact that there is a statutory maximum to the third party liability figure is a novelty in itself. In Europe (and I suspect most other "Western" places), it's illegal to drive a car unless you have insurance with
unlimited third party liability.
So I am scared even when I've taken as much supplementary liability insurance as I can, as it typically still only offers $1m in coverage. In my day job, I handle plenty of cases where the insurance company is having to fork out well over that figure - even on the basis of purely compensatory, non-punitive, UK-level damages.