The only state where you have the choice of purchasing Virginia car insurance or paying a fee to be able to drive without any coverage.

Virginia allows you to fly on your own by allowing you to drive without car insurance.

When it comes to choices and insurance coverages, most states don’t give you much of a choice. The only choice you are actually ever offered is if you want to purchase insurance or go with some other way of proving financial responsibility (bonds, etc.). In Virginia, however, you are given an alternative option of being able to drive and not have to prove financial responsibility.

Just don’t think that it comes without a price though, no state will allow you to do that.

Needed Virginia Car Insurance Coverage

Virginia car insurance requirements are as follows:

• $20,000 in coverage for property damage that you do to property that you do not own.

• $25,000 in coverage for the medical expenses that arise if you injure a single person in a car accident who was not in your vehicle.

• $50,000 in coverage for the medical expenses that are for two or more people you injure in a car accident. This amount is the total that your insurance company will pay for, for all medical expenses that are from an accident you cause.

Virginia does offer other methods of financial responsibility as alternatives to Virginia car insurance; for more information on these alternatives contact the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles.

Uninsured Motor Vehicle Fee for No Virginia Car Insurance

If you decide that you don’t want to drive with any Virginia car insurance coverage, you can actually pay a fee to the Department of Motor Vehicles and still be able to drive legally. This fee is called the Uninsured Motor Vehicle Fee and it has to be paid at the time that you renew the registration for your vehicle.

The fee is $500 for the year and has to be paid each time you renew if you chose to still not have Virginia car insurance coverage. This fee is only to exempt you from having to have insurance on your vehicle and does not provide you with any actual coverage. By choosing to pay this fee and not carry insurance, you are personally responsible for any damages or injuries that come from an accident you are responsible for.

Virginia Car Insurance Verification and Monitoring

Virginia tracks insurance multiple ways:

1. They are notified whenever you register or renew a registration for a vehicle, as you are to provide insurance coverage.

2. They are also notified by law enforcement if you fail to provide proof of insurance at a traffic stop.

3. They are notified by law enforcement if you have no insurance at the time of an accident that a police report was written for.

4. They are notified with a FR200 form that is filed by another party that was involved in an accident with a driver that they believe is not insured.

5. They are also notified through electronic reporting done by the insurance companies each time you cancel, purchase, or change your Virginia car insurance policy.

Another inspired story from an actual Mercury Insurance Group Customer that makes our regular vehicle problems look tame.

Summary

Commercial opens with a gentleman (a Mercury Insurance Group customer) sitting in a chair talking to us.

Customer: My Mercury moment happened during Rush Week.

The scene changes to the same customer looking up at the roof where a sedan marked with Greek letters from a fraternity on it.

Customer: When I discovered my car had been moved from its reserved parking spot. Thankfully I chose Mercury as my insurance company. They got my car off the roof and into a body shop in no time. It looks great; and now I get a free car wash every week. Isn’t that right gentlemen?

Scene changes to 5 young men washing the same sedan that was on the roof earlier, but it now no longer has Greek letters on it.

The scene changes again to the Mercury Insurance Group logo, with their website and phone number.

Announcer: We’ve dropped our rates 10% or more and added new discounts and benefits too. Get a quote at Mercuryinsurance.com.

Point of Commercial

The fine print at the bottom of this Mercury Insurance Group commercial clearly states that this commercial is not a testimonial. So, the events that are shown in the commercial are just inspired by actual customers and their experiences; this particular one may or may not have necessarily happened.

Still, Mercury Insurance Group is using these stories (there is a whole series of these types of commercials) to show that no matter how odd your claim may be, they will be there to help.

What They Want you to Do

Mercury Insurance Group is looking for two courses of action from you. First, they want you to think about your current insurance company and how helpful they are to you. Would they go out of their way to help you like Mercury Insurance Group is saying that they do for their customers?

Second, they want you to visit their website. They show you the website address at the end and also verbally ask you to visit their site. The phone number is also shown, but I really think that it is just there for the few potential customers that don’t use the internet.

My Opinion

I am really split on this commercial. Yes, it was entertaining. No, it is not true story.

I also am not feeling a huge urge to rethink my current insurance or to contact Mercury Insurance Group for a quote. So, there is no inspiration in this particular commercial that would cause me to take any action; which is a must if you want to sell insurance.

I give this Mercury Insurance commercial a thumbs up and a thumbs down.

The state allows you one “oops” for having no Missouri car insurance before they start increasing the penalties.

Keep your insurance active instead of being faced with escalating suspensions and fines.

Missouri car insurance laws require that if you are a resident of Missouri, you have to carry the minimum amount of liability and uninsured motorist coverage Missouri requires. If you aren’t a resident of Missouri, you have to be carrying at least the minimum insurance coverage that the state you live in requires.

So, because we can’t go over the coverages in every single state here, let’s just go over what is required in Missouri.

What Liability Coverage is Required for Missouri Car Insurance?

The state requires that you carry a minimum of $25,000 in liability coverage to pay for the expenses that come from injuring another person with your vehicle. You are also required to purchase $50,000 in coverage for the same expenses, just in case you injure more than one person.

Missouri car insurance laws also require that you purchase insurance coverage that pays for the damages you cause to property that is owned by another person. The minimum that you are allowed to purchase is $10,000.

This $10,000 may sound like a lot of money, but in reality, when it comes to damages you can cause with your car it’s really not very much coverage. You may want to talk to your insurance agent about what amount of coverage would be best to protect you from financial trouble after a car accident.

What Uninsured Motorist Coverage is Required for Missouri Car Insurance?

Uninsured motorist coverage protects you, not the other person, in the event of a car accident. This coverage is for injuries only and can be used if you are hit by a driver that has no insurance or has left the scene of an accident.

The minimum required coverage for uninsured motorist is the same as the required liability coverage ($25,000/$50,000).

What are the Penalties for not Having Missouri Car Insurance?

If you don’t have insurance on your vehicle, you can see one of the following happen to you:

1. Your driver’s license is immediately suspended.

2. The court can order the Driver License Bureau to supervise your insurance coverage (to make sure you keep it active).

3. The court will enter a conviction against you and 4 points will be assessed against your driving record.

If you end up with a suspended license, the time period in which you can’t drive escalates the more suspensions you receive. For your first suspension, there is no mandatory suspension period. You simply have to provide proof you have insurance in place now and pay a $20 reinstatement fee.

The second suspension will find you without a license for 90 days. To get your license back you will have to provide proof of insurance and pay a $200 fee. The third suspension comes with a 1 year suspension and a $400 fee to get your license back, after you have provided proof of insurance.

Twelve tales to emphasize that GEICO Insurance really can save you 15% or more on car insurance.

Summary

Each of the twelve commercials opens with the GEICO announcer asking two questions.

Announcer: Could switching to GEICO really save you 15% or more on car insurance? (Enter 2nd question here)……………

1) Is Ed “Too Tall” Jones too tall?

2) Does Charlie Daniels play a mean fiddle?

3) Does a 10 pound bag of flour make a really big biscuit?

4) Did the cavemen invent fire?

5) Was Abe Lincoln honest?

6) Is having a snowball fight with pitching great Randy Johnson a bad idea?

7) Is a bird in the hand worth two in the bush?

8) Can fútbol (soccer) announcer Andrés Cantor make any sport exciting?

9) Does a former drill sergeant make a terrible therapist?

10) Does Elmer Fudd have trouble with the letter “r”?

11) Do woodchucks chuck wood?

12) Did the little piggy cry “wheee-wheee-wheee” all the way home?

Point of Commercial

We have reviewed some of these GEICO commercials before, but I thought that having a whole collection of them in one post would be a perfect way to show how identical each of these commercials are. As you watch each of these commercials you will notice that the announcer asks the same question each time and the same point that GEICO can save you 15% or more is made with each commercial.

There is no deviation from the base point in each commercial; the only thing that does change is the comical second question to confirm the announcer’s first question.

What They Want you to Do

GEICO wants you to visit GEICO.com. This is the only contact information they give and it is only at the end of each commercial. Thinking about it though, this is the only contact information I ever remember for GEICO and I don’t watch TV, so I guess their advertising is working.

My Opinion

I am actually going to refrain from giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down on these commercials as there are 12 of them here, and I don’t feel the same way about all of them. There are some that I like (the woodchucks) and some that I would possibly live a better life if I never saw again (the little piggy).

Overall, GEICO does a good job in making the commercials memorable as they are not easily forgotten. This works well for them, because then people will think of GEICO when they are trying to remember companies they can contact for insurance quotes.

While the number of Massachusetts car insurance requirements is high, some of the actual required coverage amounts are ridiculously low.

A small state with big insurance requirements.

Massachusetts requires 4 separate insurance coverages for its drivers before they can hit the road. Now, compared to other states that only require 2 coverages this may seem to be a lot more coverage; but the numbers may surprise you. While there are a higher number of separate coverages required, the amounts that are required for each of the coverages is only average or much lower than other states require.

Massachusetts Car Insurance Requirements

The first coverage that you are required to carry is bodily injury liability coverage. This coverage pays for the injuries you cause to other drivers. For Massachusetts car insurance you are allowed to carry no less than $20,000 in coverage for the medical expenses of one person. You also can have no less than $40,000 in coverage for all medical expenses that result from an accident where you injure more than just one person. This is about average compared to what other states require.

The coverage that pays for your injuries, regardless of who caused the accident, is personal injury protection (PIP). You are allowed to purchase no less than $8,000 of coverage; which also runs about average with the states that actually require this coverage.

Uninsured Motorist coverage is also required with Massachusetts car insurance at the same minimum limits as bodily injury liability coverage. However, this coverage is not to cover another person; this is to protect you. In the event you are in an accident with a hit-and-run driver or a person that has no insurance, this coverage will pay for your medical expenses.

Now, I have saved the most ridiculous for last. With all of the coverage you are required to buy for your Massachusetts car insurance, you would think that it would be because Massachusetts is a state that is being overly protective of their drivers and resources.

However, when you look at the big picture, all of the required coverage is for medical expenses; except one. So, they are just protecting themselves and the medical profession that lobbies the state government from having to be stuck with medical expenses from car accidents that people cannot pay.

How else would you explain that with all of the coverage they require for medical expenses that they only require people to carry a laughable minimum amount of $5,000 in coverage for property damage you may cause?

Massachusetts Car Insurance Managed Competition

In 2008, the insurance industry in Massachusetts was essentially set free by a new process called “managed competition”; in other words, they were deregulated.

What does this mean? It means that the insurance companies that wrote insurance in the state were given the freedom to set their own insurance rates, instead of having the rates regulated by the state.

So, insurance companies set rates to where they saw fit, dropped and added discounts, and started rating drivers by different factors than what was previous allowed by the state. This meant that a lot of drivers saw an increase in their Massachusetts car insurance premiums.

Shop Around for Massachusetts Car Insurance

With managed competition every insurance company now has largely different premiums, discounts, and programs. So, the premium you are quoted from one insurance company can be nothing like the quote you get from the next insurance company.

Managed competition makes it so very important that you never settle with your first quote. You need to shop around for no less than 3 different Massachusetts car insurance quotes before you settle for the right coverage and premium.