Car Insurance Commercials........Enough!!!

[Chocaholic]

State Farm (the guy with the dimples in the coffee shop/news stand), Nationwide (the announcer), Geico (the gekko, the talking stack of money, the twighlight zone announcer), Progressive (the price gun chick), The General, 21st century, etc.

I'm effing SICK of seeing these commercials. How much of my premiums are being spent advertising the fact that each of them will save you $500/15% over the other? Is there a good carrier that does not hemmorage millions every year in an effort to appeal to the mindless masses? These constant annoying ads have become a catalyst for me to change the channel or turn the damned thing off.

Ok...off my soap box. Am I the only one?

[Oh Haha]

Amen to that, brother!!!!

Unfortunately, we have State Farm so I am contributing to the annoyance.

[red-beard]

I have 21st Century, which is now State Farm...

[RPKESQ]

Originally Posted by red-beard

I have 21st Century, which is now State Farm...

Better check that again.

21st Century was bought by Farmers Insurance, not State Farm.

[Joeaksa]

You are not alone. That frigging gekko, then Stephanie and on and on it goes...

[crustychief]

Usaa

[Joe Bob]

They pay for it by cranking rates after you get tickets from the free radar units they give the cops....

[s_morrison57]

The progressive girl is a mutt the gay dimple guy needs a B slap all the others are losers and the lizard needs the boot squash, you guys south of the 49th have really missed the boat on a lot of things

[strupgolf]

I have to laugh. Allstate or State Farm says "you can save 40% with us". Last time I checked rates, my old agent quoted me more than what I was paying. I said "wheres the 40%", and he said that's it. Now you have to know me, never an accident, no tickets, no claims for over 15 years. Now if anyone would be a good risk and pay 40% less, it would be me. I don't have a clue who would qualify for a discount if it's not me. I too am sick of these ad's all the time.

[Hugh R]

I'm tired of them as well. I have Allstate for home and cars because I can get them to insure me in brush fire country without having to go to the CA state plan for excess risk due to the brush. Saves me about $1K/year on fire insurance. I've insured my house for $250/sq. ft, plus 50% for code upgrades. When you live in brush fire country, you really need to make sure that you're well insured.

[Brillo]

Hey you woodchucks! Stop chucking my wood!

[masraum]

Three letters for you, D V R. I'm sure those commercials are bad, but they only last about five second when I'm watching. D V R is a great thing!

[legion]

Each insurer has a target market. If you are in their target market, you will save big because you are who they want as a customer and you are who they have figured out who to be profitable with. It's not hard to figure out based on the commercials. (Who is a specific ad campaign likely to appeal to?)

Just because you are a safe driver with no accidents, doesn't mean you are in a certain insurer's target market. The Safe Auto's of the world make a buttload off of people with tons of accidents who drive $h!tboxes.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

What are commercials? I use Apple TV now and on rare occasion DVR...

That said the comical part of this is I'd think most people would want their auto carrier to be the same as their homeowner insurance carrier and in checking rates for homeowner policies, the service absolutely SUCKS! The available information online is spotty at best, usually requires consent of a credit check and release of a ton of personal information, and the remaining ones that you actually have to talk to an agent are even worse - half the time the agents are idiots and won't even write the quote correctly - despite the fact they wasted 20+ minutes of your time on the phone asking a lot of questions... I ran into this with State Farm, Allstate (which was stooopid expensive anyway), Liberty Mutual, etc. All the big guys and a couple of small ones too. I'd think since the "big" product they're selling is the HO policy and the auto is an "add-on" they'd want to compete on the basis of the HO policy, but for whatever reason that does not seem to be the case.

I was rather surprised by how inexpensive HO policies are around this area, FWIW... But I swear all the kids who got "C's" in high school must've ended up becoming insurance agents. They're almost universally brain-dead, at least in my experience.

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

But I swear all the kids who got "C's" in high school must've ended up becoming insurance agents. They're almost universally brain-dead, at least in my experience.

Are you sure you don't mean insurance adjusters? Or are those the kids that got worse than "C's?"

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I'd think those were the less-than-C students - the bullies. The ones who enjoy pushing other people around and taking advantage of them. That's the psy-profile of an insurance adjuster IMHO - just a bully with a suit. The only skill they need is to read through the 600 sentences of fine print in the policy (written by the "A" students) and find one thing with which to deny coverage - shouldn't be too hard. In practice they probably don't even do that - they probably just talk in the office among themselves about "what worked" for someone else and then copy it.

I'm really surprised that more insurers don't compete (or seem to) on the basis of the HO policies though... Are the profit margins that much greater on auto policies, even if a particular person ISN'T bundling their home/auto under the same brand?

I shop around for new auto policies every year (I have a reminder set up on my calendar). Ad campaigns have absolutely ZERO to do with who I choose - it all comes down to price.

[azasadny]

Something had to replace the mortgage refinance commercials!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

You mean you miss "Ditech - people are smart"?!?!

I wonder how many of those "smart" people have gotten foreclosure notices...

[attamz]

I'll have to agree w/ you here. I especially can't stand the girl from progressive.

[ChrisBennet]

"People who switch to ___ insurance save an average of X%"
Of course they do, the ones who would have payed more don't switch!"