Actually, Venk,Deelmakur, I like this change. Its very specific and informs the customer exactly what will happen. But I can understand why people are worried about it.

For one, Paragraph 9 deals with prohibited use of the car. essentially, if you buy LDW or not, if you violate the contract, your responsible for damages.

Second, fare market value of the car is not "new" price, its the sale price of the car at wholesale. I can go into a long littany of why they are doing this, but the short answer is "if they fix it and sell it, it costs more to you and avis than selling it as is and using the running average of similar vehicles sold at market to pay the difference". After years of study on the issue, the average cost to the consumer under the new scenario is $500 less than to repair. Scary thought, but true.

In the hit and run scenario, the damage to the car must exceed the turnback cap of the car before they wont fix it. Avis through the car manufacturers are allowed x number of damage, depending on which program the car comes from. If a car receives a big hit more than x by contract, they wont fix it, sell it as is, take the difference from the industry average at wholesale for that car with that mileage in that city.

A good rule of thumb, the accident damage (at cost) would need to be greater than 1/5th the cost of the car new. So a 20,000 car (malibu) would need to take a hit greater than 3300 before they would sell "as is" and not repair it.

So in essence, it would need to be a pretty damn big hit and run. Second, it would be your credit card or personal insurance's job to argue final remittance cost. If you are renting a car and have absolutely zero insurance umbrella, you are taking a big risk anyway. If your own personal car at home doesnt have insurance, then you are taking the same risk at home, worse if you have no liability because most cars have some basic liability attached to it already.