Is $300k liability coverage enough for a car rental?

December 15, 2022 4:45 PM

Enterprise, National, and a few other car rental agencies reduced the coverage of their supplemental liability insurance (that you pay extra for) from $1 million to $300,000 per incident a few years ago. Is this enough in case of an accident? I'd prefer using Enterprise as it's local to me, but the lesser coverage makes me nervous.

I don't have a car, so when I rent cars, I typically purchase their offered supplemental liability protection. I know Avis and Budget still offers theirs at $1-2 million per incident, but Enterprise, National, and a few others had recently reduced their coverage to $300k per incident. I don't have my own insurance, so would $300k be enough, or would I be better served using Avis or Budget?

posted by thoughtful_analyst to Travel & Transportation (10 answers total)

I guess the answer depends on how safely you drive, but yeah, 300k should be fine. Most states require much less. Ohio only requires like 50k, and I think other states require even less. Anecdotally, I work in the insurance industry (but not as an agent, so don’t take me as any sort of authority - IANAIA, IANYIA), and 100k and 250k are the two limits I see most often.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:58 PM on December 15, 2022

I mean, California only requires $30k coverage for killing a family, but you can still be sued for more if they think you have the assets.

Perhaps you can get an umbrella liability policy of some sort?
posted by alexei at 5:24 PM on December 15, 2022

I think for owned car insurance the upper limit I found was 500k bodily injury and 100k property (and, of course, not everyone pays for that much), which might help set the context for you.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 5:36 PM on December 15, 2022

You can buy nonowner liability insurance. I pay around $200/year I think, which saves money over buying it directly from the rental agencies if you rent even a couple days a month. I got it through Geico, but shop around. Many insurers don't offer it and prices vary greatly among those who do.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 7:02 PM on December 15, 2022

I don't own a car either, and I've increased the umbrella liability in my renter's insurance to help backstop this, I think I went with $2M. So that's a place you might be able to look.
posted by Superilla at 7:04 PM on December 15, 2022

In general, even if someone sues you for more than $300k, the insurance company will be on the hook for the first $300k, and since they don't want to pay that out, they will fight quite hard.

But I have an umbrella policy and that helps me sleep a bit better.
posted by coberh at 8:43 PM on December 15, 2022

Unless you kill someone and also total a bunch of cars or take out electricity for an entire neighborhood of people, you'll be fine. For most people, that knowledge is enough to be okay with 300k liability coverage. (Most people carry a lot less on their own personal auto insurance policies.) It's worth it to get supplemental liability coverage of $1M if you prefer to feel better protected in the case of a highly unlikely but drastic scenario.

There's really no such thing as "enough" coverage because you can't predict what could happen in the event of a car accident, but based on *probability* (as opposed to possibility), most situations involving an accident or damage in a rental car will fall well within $50k damage. So, you have to decide how much liability coverage you feel the most comfortable carrying, given probability and your own personal needs.

Source: I worked as a car insurance Bodily Injury liability insurance claim investigator/settlement negotiator for over a decade.
posted by nightrecordings at 5:42 AM on December 16, 2022

my understanding is if that 300k in liability is usually standard/sufficient in the case of an incident. if you want extra protection you could look into getting either a non-owners auto insurance policy (basically car insurance for people without cars that just covers liability) or an umbrella policy that could extend to cover your liability if you're in an accident in a rental car. my husband who is a freelancer has a business liability policy that offers auto liability up to $1million, for example.
posted by monster_a at 6:27 AM on December 16, 2022

Also, in general, opposing lawyers learn what the limits are and will sue up to that amount.
posted by sandmanwv at 6:52 AM on December 16, 2022

From a practical standpoint, unless you have significant assets, there is literally no point to opposing counsel going after you beyond the $300K. They just want the money they can get. Almost all of these cases are on contingency (lawyers get a fraction of the award), so the actual client is not footing the bill and is not going to try to punish anyone by trying to claw every last dollar out of the defendant. Depending on your state, the vast majority of people's assets are protected from liability anyway, such as a house or 401(k). In California, for instance, the accounts used by schoolteachers are not protected from liability. There are other classes of assets that are not protected, so it is worth checking, especially if you have assets outside the norm.

That said, if you have a positive net worth, an umbrella liability policy is an excellent way to buy peace of mind. You can get a fairly high limit, like $1M, for a coupla hundred bucks. Normally these are written as riders to a car insurance policy but you can get them standalone if you poke around. The other advantage of these policies is you are guaranteed to get the good lawyers from your insurance company. It is going to be worth it to them to protect their own exposure. I mean, can you in theory disable a young doctor who just completed their anesthesiology specialty and be sued for $10M in lost earnings and future care? Sure. But the legal system is not about what is right, it's about what you can get.
posted by wnissen at 9:59 AM on December 16, 2022