Glossary
Third-party liability (TPL)
The mandatory insurance layer that covers damage the renter causes to other people, vehicles, or property — separate from any cover for the rental vehicle itself.
Third-party liability (TPL) is the legally required insurance baseline in almost every jurisdiction where you can rent a vehicle. It pays for injury or damage the renter causes to anyone outside the rental car — other drivers, pedestrians, parked cars, roadside property. Without valid TPL the rental cannot legally happen, so the rental contract always either includes it in the headline rate or bundles it as a non-optional charge.
TPL is not CDW. CDW limits what the renter pays for damage to the rental vehicle itself; TPL pays third parties when the renter is at fault. The two products are sold together precisely because drivers usually assume "insurance" means both, and discovering at claim time that only third-party damage is covered is the most common source of post-rental disputes.
Statutory minimum cover varies — the EU floor is in the millions of euros for personal injury, and several markets sell supplemental layers (SLP) for renters who want higher caps for US travel or commercial use. The agreement template in renviq records the TPL cover limit alongside any optional top-up so the obligations on each side are unambiguous if a claim is filed.