I cannot believe that third party liability insurance is not included when you rent a car on the island even if you decline any extra or supplemental third party liability coverage - e.g., the $5 per day kind of thing. In both France and the Netherlands, third party liability insurance coverage to an unlimited or very high amount is required to be included in the cost of the rental. No one can rent a car to you in either country without the third party liability insurance coverage in place.

I am pretty confident that the law on the french-side of the island is the same as in France, both because of the way the law works generally and because of the fact that people renting from a french-side car rental business say that they have been told that third party liability coverage is included in an unlimited amount. Plus, this kind of requirement is just what the french do.

I am not so confident on dutch-side, but still believe that there must be a requirement that the cost of rental must include third party liability insurance. I cannot believe that a car rental business in Sint Maarten can rent you a car and there actually is zero third party liability insurance coverage in place. Even if that could occur on dutch-side, I cannot believe that that would be legal on french-side and of course even if you rent from a dutch-side business almost all of us go to french-side.

Am I sure about this, heck no. Do I care enough to consult an island attorney about this, no. We have rented from Michael/Unity for years and have him include the $5 a day for "liability" in his quote. What we really are getting - and whether we really need it, I have no idea.