GUARANTEES

We have executed various agreements with third parties that contain standard indemnifications that may require us to indemnify a third party against losses arising from a variety of matters such as lease obligations, financing agreements, environmental matters, and agreements to sell business assets. In each of these instances, payment by Ryder is contingent on the other party bringing about a claim under the procedures outlined in the specific agreement. Normally, these procedures allow us to dispute the other party’s claim. Additionally, our obligations under these agreements may be limited in terms of the amount and/or timing of any claim. We have entered into individual indemnification agreements with each of our independent directors, through which we will indemnify such director acting in good faith against any and all losses, expenses and liabilities arising out of such director’s service as a director of Ryder. The maximum amount of potential future payments under these agreements is generally unlimited.

We cannot predict the maximum potential amount of future payments under certain of these agreements, including the indemnification agreements, due to the contingent nature of the potential obligations and the distinctive provisions that are involved in each individual agreement. Historically, no such payments made by us have had a material adverse effect on our business. We believe that if a loss were incurred in any of these matters, the loss would not have a material adverse impact on our consolidated results of operations or financial position.

At December 31, 2018 and 2017, we had letters of credit and surety bonds outstanding, which primarily guarantee various insurance activities as noted in the following table:



	December 31,
	2018		2017
	(In thousands)
Letters of credit	$	253,259	238,610
Surety bonds	121,757		111,007