The state known as the birth place of Jazz plays by its own tune for its Louisiana car insurance requirements.

Don’t worry, enjoying too many beignets won’t change your Louisiana car insurance requirements.

Louisiana car insurance requirements take their residents over to a slightly different way of determining what insurance they need to be able to drive. Instead of a liability limits that are mandatory to be carried by all vehicles, Louisiana sets limits based on the weight of the vehicle. The state also gives the option of carrying combined single limits instead of split limits.

Louisiana Car Insurance by Weight

The amount of car insurance that you have to carry in the state of Louisiana is determined by how much your vehicle weighs. I was a little thrown back by this when I first saw it, but it makes complete sense. A heavier vehicle is likely to cause more damage to what it hits. It also takes a heavier vehicle longer to slow down, meaning that it will create a longer damage path than a lighter vehicle that can stop quicker.

By weight of vehicle (no, don’t include the people in it) here are the mandatory Louisiana car insurance requirements:

• 20,000 Pounds or Less- 15/30/25

• 20,001 to 50,000 Pounds – 25/50/25 or a single combined limit of $75,000

• 50,001 Pounds or Greater – 100/300/25 or a single combined limit of $300,000

All of these limits are for liability coverage. The first number in the xx/xx/xx is the liability coverage for bodily injury for a single person that you injure in an accident. The second number is the total amount that would be paid out in bodily injury claims for all of the people that you injure, that are not in your vehicle. The last number is the limit that your insurance company would pay up to for damages that you do to another person’s property.

Single Combined Limit for Louisiana Car Insurance

Single combined limits are available through your insurance company and are acceptable in most states. Having a single liability limit just is not something that is frequently done, so it is talked about very little. Louisiana is the first state that I have researched that outright approves of single combined limits as part of their listed mandatory insurance requirements.

A single combined limit for Louisiana car insurance is as simple as it sounds. Instead of breaking up the liability limits into different amounts for how much will cover what; the single limit covers everything up to the specified amount.

For example, say you caused an accident that caused $30,000 in damages to the other person’s vehicle and resulted in $10,000 in medical expenses. With the Louisiana car insurance minimum requirements of 15/30/25, the medical expenses would be paid, but you would have $5,000 not covered by your insurance company from the property damages. This $5,000 will come directly from you.

Now, if you had an insurance policy with a combined single limit of $50,000, all of it would be covered. Because the combined single limit policies don’t dictate how much it will pay for injuries as compared to property damage; all liability costs are under one limit.

Don’t feel left out if you can’t use the insurance bundler from Progressive Insurance, bundlers are more common than you think.

Bundling your insurance policies all together safely can be much more benficial than having them floating separately with different companies.

Flo from Progressive Insurance has quite the campaign going on about her new Insurance Bundler machine. She talks about how new and great it is to be able to bundle both your car insurance and other insurance products together to save even more on your insurance premium.

If you don’t remember, these are the commercials where one of the employees accidently sticks his hands in the Insurance Bundler and they become bundled with the boxes that were also in the machine (“No hands in the Bundler”). Another one of the commercials has a man that is bundled together with a horse.

What is an Insurance Bundler?

In the advertisements, the Insurance Bundler is an actual machine. The customer in the Progressive Insurance store selects separate insurance policies (represented by boxes) that are then placed inside the Insurance Bundler. When the Bundler is turned on it combines the different insurance policies together into one package.

The Insurance Bundler is basically a marketing campaign that Progressive came up with to advertise that if you keep all your insurance needs with them that you can save money. It also brings to people’s attention that Progressive Insurance sells more than just the auto insurance and they are mostly known for.

Can You Only Get an Insurance Bundler from Progressive Insurance?

While the actual Insurance Bundler machine is a Progressive Insurance creation (and is not real), the concept is not exclusive to Progressive Insurance. Every time you purchase multiple insurance products from a company, you are essentially “bundling” your insurance together. It is not in one policy, but it is together with one company.

Any insurance company will be more than happy to put all of your insurance products together with them, as long as they are licensed to sell the products you need in your state. Even with giving you the multi-policy discount, they are still making more money if you move your policy over to then than if you were to keep it with a different company.

What are the Benefits of Doing an Insurance Bundler?

The benefit of having multiple insurance products together with one insurance company is that they usually offer additional discounts on your insurance. You will see discounts such as “multi-policy” listed on the declarations page of your insurance policy to show that you are getting the discount.

It also makes it more convenient for you in a multitude of ways:

• It is easier to keep all of your policies straight if they are all with one insurance company.

• Your insurance agent can help you on all of your policies at once, instead of having to call each of the different companies to take care of business.

• The billing for all of your policies can usually be combined into one payment if they are with the same insurance company.

• Multi-policy discounts.

• You only have to give your information once and they can use it to write or service all of your insurance.

If you have your policies scattered amongst multiple insurance companies, it may be time to create an insurance bundler of your own with just one company.

An insurance company website is the most important tool an insurance company can use to get and keep younger customers.

Research groups have made the choice of who their top insurance website selection is, who is your pick?

Do you realize that this current group of new drivers (born in the late 90’s) has never known life without the internet? They have never had long distance pen pals that they kept in touch with by writing a letter by hand, they text more than they talk on their cell phones and most of their business dealings (both personal and business) will be done through some form of the internet.

No, I am not anti-internet. In fact, I am just the opposite. I love the internet; I spend most of my day online for both personal and work. I will actually get online to try and take care of things (no matter what they are) before I will pick up the phone or leave my house to go and talk to someone.

It is for this new generation of drivers and people like me that has insurance companies scrambling to develop their insurance company website in order to keep our business.

The Need For An Insurance Company Website

For those that are lost on the whole concept of companies needing a website, here are two reasons why they are important. One, the insurance company saves money by having the consumer (you and me) get their own quotes online and perform their own policy maintenance online. Because we as consumers control this, the insurance companies can hire less people to help us with these items.

Two, younger consumers handle almost everything online (like I talked about earlier with myself). If an insurance company doesn’t have a website for me to get insurance quote from at 1 a.m. in the morning, I move on to the next company that does. Also being able to pay bills, print policy information and get basic information about my coverage needs to be available to me online for me to access when I need it. Generation X, Y and the millennium babies don’t like to wait for business hours before we can take care of our business.

The Top Ranked Insurance Company Website

Insurance company websites are ranked differently by the companies that do the ranking. For example, the Webby Awards are looking more for an entertainment and quality of design factor. Their 2011 winners had insurance company websites that were entertaining and taught about insurance, but had no value for someone that would already be a customer and needed to pay a bill.

On the other hand, the Web Marketing Associations WebAward bases their selection of the best insurance website based on: design, ease of use, copywriting, interactivity, use of technology, innovation and content. These categories are much more valuable to you and I as consumers. If you are wondering, they awarded American Family Insurance the best insurance website award for 2011.

Also in 2011, Key Lime Interactive rated not only insurance company websites, but mobile sites and apps that can be accessed by consumers. Their award went to State Farm and was based on feedback from users as to what they need and use the most with these mobile websites and apps. After the feedback was collected Key Lime Interactive then reviewed different mobile websites and apps to rank them.

How about you? Do you love your insurance company’s website or hate it? Share your thoughts in the comment section below on how you would rank your insurance company website.

Tom’s story may be true, but it’s not compelling enough to actually make the switch.

Summary

This AAA commercial is a monologue given by AAA customer Tom Schwallie and his personal experience with AAA.

Tom: My name is Tom Schwallie and I’m a AAA member. My wife and I switched our home and auto insurance to AAA a couple of years ago and we’re really glad we did. Our agent made sure we had the right coverage for us.

When we needed to make a claim, the first things she asked, “Is everybody safe and are you okay?”. That meant a great deal to us. We all buy insurance hoping we never need it, but when we did it was clear that AAA was the smart choice.

Screen changes to white with “I choose AAA” and that AAA logo on it. Screen changes again to “Get your quote today” and AAA.com/quote.

Point of the Commercial

Customer testimonials are a very powerful marketing tool for companies. AAA insurance is using these to try and gain your trust through the positive experiences of other clients. They want you to think that if these other people have had great experiences, you will also.

Unfortunately, you do have to be careful about staged customer testimonies. This is not to say that the ones that AAA insurance is currently using are staged, but there are desperate and unscrupulous companies out there that do. (Trust me, as a writer I have been offered and turned down jobs to write these fake customer testimonials.)

What They Want you to Do

We have already talked about AAA insurance wanting you to think that if you switch to them that you will have just as great of an experience as the person you are listening to. If you are going to make the switch or at least contact them about possibly doing so, they want you to contact them through the internet.

AAA insurance offers no other way of contacting them in this commercial other than to get a quote through their website.

My Opinion

While customer testimonials are good tool to use to advertise, they are best when used in cooperation with an additional method of advertising. I was slightly swayed into thinking that AAA might be a good switch, but only while I was watching the commercial.

Once it was over I forgot all about it. The commercial was so simple that it was boring, and there was nothing there to make it last in my memory for the next time I start looking for new insurance.

Giving this AAA insurance commercial a thumbs down.

Rhode Island car insurance takes into account what you can afford to buy, before it requires you to buy more.

Not every mandatory coverage is the same for Rhode Island car insurance.

Rhode Island car insurance is the only insurance in the country that makes certain coverages mandatory based on other coverages that are purchased. The coverage that may or may not be required is uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. Whether or not you have to purchase it depends solely on what you do with the required liability coverage.

For really bad drivers, choosing your coverage will be the least of your worries.

The Minimum Liability Needed to Satisfy Rhode Island Car Insurance

Rhode Island minimum required liability coverage falls about average as compared to other states. They require that your policy cover you for no less than 25/50/25.

This breaks down as $25,000 in liability coverage for medical related expenses that another person may have after you injure them with your vehicle. The middle number is a total of $50,000 available in coverage for all everyone, not in your vehicle, that has medical expenses from an accident that you cause.

The last 25 is that you are required to carry no less than $25,000 in liability coverage for any property damage that you cause. Now this may seem to be a high number and offer enough coverage to you if you were to get into an accident. But, what if you damage an expensive vehicle or cause an accident with multiple vehicles?

The Uninsured Motorist Coverage and Rhode Island Car Insurance

The state of Rhode Island requires that you carry uninsured/ underinsured motorist coverage as well as liability coverage on your vehicle to legally drive in the state. Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage is what covers your injuries and damages if another driver causes an accident.

It only kicks in though if the other driver has no insurance or not enough insurance to cover your expenses. If the coverage is used to cover damages to your vehicle, you are still responsible for a $200 deductible.

Rhode Island car insurance does have an “opt out” option for the uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. It is only available to those that purchase the minimum amount of liability coverage only. If you purchase higher liability coverage than what is minimally required by the state, you will be required to also buy the uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage.

Rhode Island Car Insurance Plan

Also known as “Assigned Risk Pool” or “Force Placed Coverage”, this program is for those drivers that are so bad, no insurance company wants to voluntarily insure them. These drivers then have to go through this plan and an insurance company is “assigned” or “forced” to insure them.

Every insurance company has to take in an equal share of these drivers as determined by how much business they do. The larger insurance companies are required to take on more of these drivers than smaller ones because the larger companies do more regular business.

Once placed in this program a driver will see astronomical insurance premiums according to how bad they are. When I worked in this department I personally saw premium of over $9,000 and heard of a policy that was being charged $14,000. Keep in mind; this was for only 6 months of insurance.

You can be removed from this assigned risk Rhode Island car insurance plan once you have obtained a 3-year record of clean driving.