The Full Coverage Decision Point
You own two cars in Louisiana. You're paying for collision and comprehensive on both vehicles because that's what you've always done, but the older car's premiums feel disproportionate to what you'd actually recover if you filed a claim. You're wondering whether it's time to drop full coverage on the older vehicle and keep only liability.
The decision hinges on a specific calculation: whether the annual cost of collision and comprehensive coverage exceeds the maximum claim payout you could receive after the deductible. Louisiana law requires you to carry liability insurance — $15,000 per person for bodily injury, $30,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage — but collision and comprehensive are optional. Once a vehicle's value drops below a certain threshold, paying for physical-damage coverage becomes a losing proposition.
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Get Your Free QuoteLouisiana Liability Minimum
$15,000 / $30,000 / $25,000
Louisiana requires every registered vehicle to carry at least $15,000 per person for bodily injury, $30,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage. Dropping collision and comprehensive does not change this requirement — liability coverage remains mandatory.
Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles
What Full Coverage Actually Covers
Full coverage is not a legal term. It's shorthand for a policy that includes liability plus collision and comprehensive. Liability covers damage you cause to other people and their property. Collision covers damage to your own vehicle in an accident, regardless of fault. Comprehensive covers non-collision events: theft, vandalism, hail, flood, hitting a deer.
When you drop full coverage, you're dropping collision and comprehensive. You keep liability because Louisiana law requires it. The vehicle remains insured — it's just insured for what you're legally obligated to cover, not for physical damage to the car itself.
The claim payout for collision or comprehensive is capped at the vehicle's actual cash value minus your deductible. Once the vehicle's value drops low enough, the maximum payout no longer justifies the annual premium.
The blocker: you don't know your car's actual cash value, so you can't calculate whether the premium exceeds the maximum payout.
How to Calculate the Drop Point
Start with your vehicle's actual cash value. Use Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds, or NADA Guides to get a private-party sale estimate for your car's year, make, model, mileage, and condition. Subtract your deductible — typically $500 or $1,000 — to get the maximum net payout.
Next, calculate the annual cost of collision and comprehensive on that vehicle. If you insure multiple cars on one policy, ask your carrier to break out the collision and comprehensive premium for the older vehicle alone. Compare that annual cost to the maximum net payout. If the annual premium is more than 10 percent of the net payout, you're paying more in coverage than you're likely to recover. At that point, dropping to liability-only makes financial sense for most households.
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State-Specific Considerations in Louisiana
Louisiana is a fault state. If another driver causes an accident, their liability insurance pays for your vehicle damage. If you drop collision coverage, you can still recover repair costs from the at-fault driver's property-damage liability — but only if they carry adequate limits and only if fault is clear. If the other driver is uninsured or underinsured, or if fault is disputed, you have no collision coverage to fall back on.
Louisiana does not require uninsured motorist property damage coverage. The state's uninsured motorist rate is 11.7 percent, meaning roughly one in nine drivers on the road carries no insurance. If an uninsured driver totals your car and you've dropped collision, you absorb the loss. Uninsured motorist property damage is optional in Louisiana, but it's worth carrying if you drop collision on a vehicle you cannot afford to replace out of pocket.
Louisiana weather adds another variable. Hurricanes, tropical storms, and severe thunderstorms produce frequent comprehensive claims — wind damage, flooding, hail. If you drop comprehensive, you carry the full cost of storm damage. If your vehicle is garaged in a flood-prone parish or near the coast, comprehensive may be worth keeping even on an older car.
Louisiana Uninsured Motorist Rate
11.7%
One in nine drivers in Louisiana carries no insurance. If an uninsured driver totals your car and you've dropped collision, you absorb the loss unless you carry optional uninsured motorist property damage coverage.
Insurance Information Institute, 2023
Multi-Car Policy Implications
When you drop collision and comprehensive on one vehicle in a multi-car policy, the carrier re-rates the entire policy. The multi-car discount applies to the total premium, not to individual vehicles. Dropping coverage on the older car reduces the base premium, but the discount percentage may shift depending on how the carrier structures its multi-vehicle pricing. Ask your carrier to quote the policy both ways — with and without full coverage on the older vehicle — before making the change.
Some carriers require all vehicles on a multi-car policy to carry the same coverage levels. If your carrier enforces this rule, you cannot drop collision on one car while keeping it on another. You would need to move the older vehicle to a separate liability-only policy, which eliminates the multi-car discount for that vehicle and may cost more than keeping full coverage. Check your carrier's policy-structure rules before assuming you can mix coverage levels within one policy.
What to Do Right Now
Pull your current policy declarations page and identify the collision and comprehensive premium for each vehicle. Look up the actual cash value of your older car using Kelley Blue Book or NADA. Subtract your deductible to get the maximum net payout. If the annual collision and comprehensive premium exceeds 10 percent of that payout, contact your carrier and request a quote for liability-only coverage on that vehicle. Ask whether the carrier allows mixed coverage levels on a multi-car policy, and if so, how the multi-car discount changes. Compare the revised premium to your current cost and decide whether the savings justify the loss of physical-damage coverage. If you drop collision, consider adding uninsured motorist property damage to cover the gap left by Louisiana's high uninsured rate.