By Robert Helfand ( October 31, 2017, 11:34 AM EDT) -- As e-commerce grows, online shoppers increasingly expect a frictionless experience. To help businesses meet that demand, 47 states adopted the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), allowing companies to contract with consumers without forcing their customers to deliver a physical signature. Insurance is part of this trend: According to J.D. Power, 74 percent of insurance consumers shopped online for automobile policies in 2016, and 25 percent bought their coverage entirely through the internet.[1] But insurers' interactions with consumers are often regulated in ways that don't apply to Amazon. In many states, carriers can be penalized for failing to present online shoppers with "meaningful offers" — offers that "intelligibly advise" consumers about complex financial products in a "commercially reasonable" way. Recently, in Moultrie v. Progressive Direct Insurance Co., No. 2:16-cv-03174 (D.S.C. Oct. 18, 2017), a federal court in South Carolina showed that the paternalistic impulses underlying this type of insurance law can overcome even the seemingly unassailable power of the internet....