
Before Driving a Zipcar, Consider Liability Insurance - mikecarlton
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/your-money/23money.html?_r=1
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kevingadd
This reads like a hit piece by someone with a grudge against zipcar, for some
reason. It seems well written enough but I can't figure out why zipcar is
mentioned repeatedly when he provides examples of other car sharing services
that do worse, and one person he quotes mentions individuals with 50k policy
limits. This article would be better if it was cautioning all car drivers to
ensure they had adequate insurance.

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jeff18
I like how he proudly claims to have been advocating this issue since 2005,
then begrudgingly writes that it has never been an actual problem in ZipCar's
history.

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guan
You buy insurance mostly to protect against costs that are expensive and
unlikely to happen. The article points out that in New York, which has a lot
of Zipcar customers, 3 percent of bodily injury liability insurane claims are
over $300,000. So although no Zipcar rental has yet resulted in such a claim,
it still seems like something worth insuring against.

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parfe
What the hell kind of story is this? The $300,000 is a perfectly reasonable
coverage. Right now I have $250,000 per person and $500,000 per accident
liability coverage and I find that to be perfectly reasonable. You can't even
go over $500,000. This hit piece making it seem like $300,000 is
cheaping/screwing the customer is pretty sickening.

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bstx
> The $300,000 is a perfectly reasonable coverage.

Really? My liability insurance in Germany covers up to €100 million per
accident, and that's pretty standard. I always feel a bit anxious when driving
rental cars in the US (even with SLI) considering how sue happy Americans are.

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parfe
Random googlings point me towards Haftpflichtversicherung being German Third
party liability insurance which seems to be uniquely German in that it is so
high compared to other countries. The linked forum[1] talks about Germans
being shocked others don't carry such high coverage.

US States set their own minimums and none break $100k required. [2]

[1] <http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t97713.html> [2]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/United_States...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/United_States_auto_insurance#Requirements_by_State)

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zackola
It's a cheap shot for sure, but it would be nice if zipcar offered some
extended liability coverage.

EDIT: If any hn'ers have experience with non-owner's auto insurance and didn't
totally hate the company, please let me know.

