Insurers sit on sidelines during Super Bowl ad blitz. (Property/Casualty: Marketplace).

The Super Bowl is an advertising hit--but not with insurance companies.

ABC sold 30-second commercial spots at $2.1 million per spot, according to several recent published reports. The price is near the all-time record for the game, always one of the most-watched TV events of the year.

The price is simply too high for most insurers.

"We are a mutual company, so we make sure that we spend our ad dollars wisely. The cost for the ad time during the Super Bowl is rather expensive," said Zoe Younker of State Farm.

Some insurers said the big splash provided by a Super Bowl ad must complement the company's overall advertising strategy.

"When we advertised on the Super Bowl in 1999, the objective was to dramatically increase awareness levels--and it worked," said Mary Beth McDade of Progressive. Progressive made a brief advertising splash by sponsoring the Super Bowl XXXIII halftime show and debuting commercials using the character E.T.

"Our advertising objective now is to build the Progressive brand in consumers minds. This requires exposing consumers to Progressive advertising frequently, which means we buy a lot of media. The Super Bowl just didn't fit into our plans this year," McDade said.

The high-profile ad environment of the Super Bowl--where the commercials are watched as closely as the game itself--is an opportunity and a challenge for the advertiser, said Kimberly Paterson, president of Creative Insurance Marketing, an industry consulting firm.

"These days the game is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to media exposure. Best and worst ads are covered on the evening news and in every major newspaper. To succeed in this environment the message has to be compelling and the creative work brilliant. This is traditionally a challenge for a 'low-interest' category like insurance," Paterson said.

That challenge--and the imposing cost--are the biggest reasons insurers are opting out of the Super Bowl, Paterson said.

"Given the current insurer media budgets, there aren't a lot of companies out there willing to allocate $2.1 million for a single commercial. Market segmentation is a critical strategy for many insurers. An event like the Super Bowl simply doesn't make sense for them," she said.

Joel Borgardt, vice president of corporate marketing for Kemper, called Super Bowl advertising "a very expensive shotgun approach," and not one that would primarily reach Kemper's target markets. "It's not an efficient buy," he said.