Scoop, these links are very interesting. It's my understanding that in California, car rental agencies were exempted from providing even the minimum liability coverage (at least around 1995-1998). That's not an issue for most US-based drivers (except for most Manhattan residents) because their own car insurance policy will apply when driving a rental car. However, if you don't have driving insurance (either on your car or as a separate non-owner insurance), and decide not to buy the SLI provided by the car rental agency, you might be responsible for the liability cost. In most cases, rental agencies require you to provide information about your car/driving insurance company. If you can't (because you don't have one) they can refuse to rent you a car. Now, I've never found myself in such a situation because I usually was covered by my own car insurance (or by the non-owner insurance, in one instance), so it could be that it's just a strong-arm tactic to force non-US travelers to pay their inflated SLI charges. So which is it: the III.com assertion that rental companies have to provide the minimum required in each state (which is, admittedly, usually pretty low), or what the rental companies reps say, that no liability insurance is included whatsoever, no even the minimum required by law?