Originally Posted by htb
You may only be asking about legal/financial liability, but I still want to cry out that your line of thought is very inhuman. 3rd party liability is not only for your protection, but also for the protection of the person you are causing damage to. You state your intend to avoid this responsibility, so I don't think there will be any "discussion" about the moral aspects, as the outcome should be clear.
I dont understand your point. I basically agree with you about the moral aspect and I think it is probably obvious to everybody... that is why I did not ask about it.
By the way, all the rental companies have 3rd party liability insurance. It was explained to me once that it would cover any 3rd party liability that the renter was unable to cover. Actually, to me it seems a bit strange that the rental company's insurance would be responsible unless it could be shown that the rental company was somehow negligent in renting me the car... but in the US legal system anything is possible... And to some extent this does make some sense, since loads of people from all over the world (who would never have a 3rd party liability policy) come to the US to rent cars... for example one of my Russian employees was in the US on his personal time a few weeks ago and rented a car... I guess he does not have more than $10,000 to his name. What would happen if he got into an accident that caused financial loss to a 3rd party? Certainly he could not compensate, and I'm sure he did not take the insurance offered by the rental card company. So I will not be surprised if the rental car company's insurance kicks in...