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Why is it apparently cool and fine for insurance companies to spend countless billions, trillions of our money constantly buying ad time?

On every single professional sports game I’ve ever seen, every single show, every single channel. Isn’t this our fucking money you’re meant to give out should, god forbid, something happen?

Why is it even legal to do this? Blowing this money on CONSTANT, DUMB fucking little fucking cutesy fucking skits, not even trying to fucking pitch anything anymore, just burning money on TV and laughing at us while the fucking lemur does epic bants. it makes me so fucking sick, these people should be chained in the dungeons for the rest of their lives.

It’s illegal to not have car insurance so why the fuck do they think we need to see this constant fucking microwaved vomit fucking garbage every fucking second every fucking show every fucking channel??

thank you

Jikiya ,

It stopped being your money when you gave it to them. It became their money, and they get to spend it how they want, with some caveats.

scarabic ,

One reason insurance ads are so stupid is that they are tightly regulated as to what they can actually say. They’re not allowed to make big promises. So you get lizards talking to car tires or whatever the fuck.

RGB3x3 ,

15 minutes could save you 15% or more. Or it could save you less. Probably less or none at all. The point is that it could save you 15%

yesman ,

There are two reasons

  1. The market is saturated. Everybody pretty much already has insurance and they only shop for it when they have a reason to. So you want them to have your company’s name on their mind when the time comes. The biggest source of new customers are people who switch from someone else.
  2. GEICO was having name recognition problems when it transitioned from covering government employees exclusively.(Government Employees Insurance Company) This is where the lizard mascot came from. It was a huge success and other insurance companies followed suit. What we have now is a sort of arms race where all the major companies spend ridiculous amounts on advertising, but nobody wants to scale back for fear of being buried by their competitors ads.
SocialMediaRefugee ,

Billions? Trillions? Ummmm, anyway…

The reason is because they aren’t idiots, it works or they wouldn’t do it. The issue with car insurance (and I assume this is what you are talking about since they bombard me also) is that it is a commodity. Let’s face it, they are all the same and heavily regulated by states. The only way they can grab customers is by the “plant our name in your head” method and that requires yelling at you constantly.

That said I HATE those ads. Geico has now been replace by Liberty Mutual as the most annoying company.

Aabbcc ,

The question wasn’t why do they try, the question was why does society let them do it

SocialMediaRefugee ,

Free speech. They used to ban drug ads and that got dropped.

Personally I’d rather see ads for lawyers banned.

Blackmist ,

Because society in general does business with companies they’ve already heard of.

archomrade ,

Because acknowledging that we don’t need insurance advertised to us would require also acknowledging insurance shouldn’t be commodified to begin with.

hotkinkyjo ,

www.vidlii.com/watch?v=njL4HaoY8lW

dustyData ,

Well, it’s not your money. You’re gambling with them, your bet is that you’ll get sick or have an accident within X period of time, they’re gambling that you won’t. At the same time, to uphold your gamble, you have to do everything any sane person would do to avoid illness or accidents.

You pay the ante up-front, just like on gambling tables, that’s no longer your money. You’re down that money.

But, if your gamble gets an out, you get payed big time. Hopefully in the form of them covering a portion or a totality of your healthcare expenses. It’s a big dangerous casino, and as usual, the house always has the edge.

Kiosade ,

Except some people don’t get paid big time. A lot of people actually. Because they like to waste all the ante’d money on stuff like these stupid ads.

WheeGeetheCat ,
@WheeGeetheCat@sh.itjust.works avatar

Except the casino can refuse to pay out for any reason at all

MonsiuerPatEBrown ,

Naming it gambling and then having it required by the government to operate a vehicle seems like a bad analogy.

dustyData ,

I know, but that’s what literally it is. It’s even the historical origin of insurance as a concept. If you win, they have to pay your liabilities, if insurance wins, that means there hasn’t been any major accident or harm done. Either way, for the government, it’s a win-win. Either all it’s fine, or someone is ready to pay up the costs. The problem is, of course, scummy insurers who refuse to pony up their end of the bargain because they blew the money on ads, cocaine and hookers.

HessiaNerd ,

Insurance company are subject to regulations. They are lots of different regulations for different types of insurance and different states. The goals are to ensure that they are able to pay out when things go wrong, and to ensure a fair consumer practice. Generally all of the premiums they collect are supposed to be payed out and a large percent of the money is supposed to be held in reserve. They are supposed to be making money on investing the premiums.

It’s not about them winning the bet that they won’t have to pay. If they won that bet too much, it would be reflected in too high premiums, and competitors would just under cut them.

dustyData ,

Ahhh, the Free Market™ in action. When human suffering is the only economically viable option.

/s

splendoruranium ,

On every single professional sports game I’ve ever seen, every single show, every single channel. Isn’t this our fucking money you’re meant to give out should, god forbid, something happen?

While there’s certainly no redeeming feature to be found in the advertising industry, I feel like you might be missing the point of insurance. An insurance does not safe-keep “your” money. You pay insurance for a service, you then receive the service and your money is gone, spent, as if you had bought groceries. The service you receive is what is called “coverage” but what is more easily thought of as “immunity against bankruptcy due to X”, X being the insurance case. That’s what you buy.

Figuring out how to best allocate the money is up to the insurance - it’s their money, after all.

1847953620 ,

Yes, but spending the money creates more of an incentive and more pressure to figure out how to skimp on payouts

rivalary ,

The only issue with that is their prices go up if their costs go up. Kind of like how grocery stores claim that theft causes prices to go up. It is their money, though it does feel bad paying them.

_number8_ OP ,

i absolutely disagree. the way insurance works is you all pay into it and they use that money for claims. it’s literally our money.

splendoruranium ,

i absolutely disagree. the way insurance works is you all pay into it and they use that money for claims. it’s literally our money.

Again, you do not “pay into” anything. There’s no pool or fund or growing personal account. You buy a service. There is an exchange of goods and services here. As you receive the service, the money ceases to be yours.
Whether or not other people file claims with the insurance doesn’t matter, just like it doesn’t matter whether or not the baker buys new furniture after selling bread to you. They’re not paying the furniture store with your money, they’re paying the furniture store with their own money that became theirs as soon as you relinquished it to them in exchange for the bread.

Illuminostro ,

Why do you hate prosperity? Why do you hate fiscal freedom? Why do you hate God, who allowed those companies to make those Divine Profits? They wouldn’t have them if Mammon didn’t want them to.

Sounds like Obamunism to me.

itsralC ,

Had me in the first half

eskimofry ,

Honestly I think the downvotes are not because people missed your joke… but it was incensing to read that and realize the execs of those companies probably think like that unironically.

Illuminostro ,

Some of them do. Calvinism. “I’m rich because God wanted me to be.”

dangblingus ,

Because you don’t make the rules and they do.

_TheThunderWolf_ ,

a petition to ban marketing, advertising, and sale of personal information in general would be a good way to have a chance at shattering big tech and commercial crap all at once, but it’ll never happen 🙁

DeathsEmbrace ,

You do realize this is going to make a lot of “free” services no longer free. Greed follows the hand.

bouh ,

It’s funny how private companies can subsidise free services but somehow “society” would not be able to do it…

aesthelete ,

At one point around the enaction of Obama-care there was a dude with a combover that came around to our office to tell us that “yes, healthcare costs are high in America, but I’m here to tell you that insurance companies are not the problem.”

So here he is: a guy lying to himself about his hair loss with a full-time job going around to different companies saying how insurance companies are not the problem…surely he couldn’t be lying, a waste, or a lying waste.

emptiestplace ,

One of these at a time, that’s how it all works.

Blackmist ,

I wonder if there’s a correlation between wigs and weasel jobs like salesmen or estate agents.

If you can lie to yourself you can lie to anyone.

Paranomaly ,
@Paranomaly@sh.itjust.works avatar

Let’s put aside the many, many problems of insurance companies in reality and talk in terms of two parties acting in good faith for ease of demonstration.

Let’s take random person Alice who has insured her wrench set at Insurance Company X. Her wrench set is very important to her job and she only believes in high quality tools, so it is quite expensive. So expensive, that if something were to happen to it, she might not be able to replace it right away. Instead, she pays Company X for an insurance policy. Alice can afford to pay a little bit every month and so this is a good set up.

Uh oh, an impromptu stomp band raided Alice’s store and appropriated her wrenches as drumsticks. They’re ruined! Luckily, Alice is insured and Insurance Company X pays her for replacement wrenches.

Unfortunately for Company X, Alice needed new wrenches before her monthly payments would exceeded the price of the wrenches. So how did they have the money? Well, they have more customers than just Alice. They use some of the money that they get from others to help buy the wrench set in the same way some of Alice’s money is used with other problems as a way to socialize the losses.

As you might guess, this requires more people. More people contributing at once means a bigger pool of money that can cover bigger individual losses when the time comes. As such, Insurance Company X uses a portion of the money they get to recruit more users and thereby make their system work better.

But also greed. Lots and lots of greed.

sukhmel ,

Although what you write is correct, you somehow made it sound like a Ponzi scheme 😅

ook_the_librarian ,
@ook_the_librarian@lemmy.world avatar

I thought we were being invited to a commune.

Adalast ,

Don’t forget the part where Insurance Company X calculates the maximum amount of damages they could be liable for from marauding flash mobs for a given affected area then raises the rates on all of their customers in an even bigger area to compensate so they can never lose money on Alice’s wrenches.

Source: I’m a mathematician who spent a summer working in the office of a roofing company and I literally watched homeowners insurance companies do it.

bouh ,

Also the billions they make in profit is not going to compensate anyone. And the billions they invest on share markets and lobbying to make the society more like they want is definitely not to the benefit of the society either.

Adalast ,

Yeah, I wrote elsewhere that I wish medical insurers were required to be 501©28 (I think that was the number). It specifically states that they are not allowed to lobby or fund political organizations/candidates.

Paranomaly ,
@Paranomaly@sh.itjust.works avatar

Not trying to speak up for any insurance company and will never say that the example is a good reflection of reality. Just showing a rough outline in how advertising and recruiting customers -could- be beneficial to the policy holder. It is as much a reflection of reality as a stick man is an anatomic model for study.

IHadTwoCows ,

I am in a particularly hateful state about insurance. My brother is an insurance broker in another state. My other brother is a right wing cuck who thinks capitalism makes everything the greatest it could be (trumper too, btw). My wife has worked all her life to pay into all the things and last April she suddenly lost her vision and her job and her shitty doctor didnt know how to treat her vertigo for seven years and fucking told her that only Jesus can fix her and now she’s fucked, broke, and today is asking me if I want a divorce so I wont be responsible for her debts or suicide.

If any if you fucking MAGA shitheads are reading this: you’re goddamn right America is a shitty country and you fucking assholes are the reason why.

cosmicrookie ,
@cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

If my doctor told me that my situation now is up to god, I’d change doctor immediately and report them to the national doctors association in my country.

Hope you and your wife make the best of it nonetheless. So extreme listening to people who can’t demand or have the right to be treated for their issues!

Reddfugee42 ,

Their primary goal is to make profit for investors. They kind of also sometimes help people.

macrocephalic ,

They kind of also pay out on the services you pay them for, it’s not helping, it’s just an obligation they haven’t managed to dodge.

It’s almost like there should be a not for profit option, perhaps if there were some large group of people who worked for everyone, and we’re controlled by some sort of elected governing body.

Adalast ,

I have had this fantasy. All health insurers be required to be 501©29. The non-profit definition for health insurers under the ACA.

Ullallulloo ,
@Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com avatar

A lot of insurance companies—arguably most of the ones used—are not for profit: American Family, COUNTRY, generally Blue Cross Blue Shield, Liberty Mutual, Northwestern Mutual, any other company with “mutual” in the name, USAA, Farmers, State Farm, Progressive, etc.

T00l_shed ,

Really? Do you have a source for that?

Ullallulloo ,
@Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com avatar

For which ones? Most are mutual insurance companies, where any profit has to legally be paid back to the customers.

www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mutualcompany.asp

T00l_shed ,

That is awesome thanks! I was unaware.

BallsInTheShredder ,

Hmm… part of me is not convinced that those companies aren’t benefitting in some way… I mean, the employees do have to be paid don’t they? What about the CEO? Is it just a passion project for them?

Ullallulloo ,
@Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com avatar

Yeah, obviously employees have to be paid like with anywhere. Those are business expenses. But at the end of the day, the amount of money they charge has to be equal to the amount it costs them.

BallsInTheShredder ,

You’re right about that, I’m more weirded out by the salaries of the CEOs compared to the other employees. According to google the CEO of American family has a salary of around a million a year so… someone is profiting from it.

The term non-profit just (to me) almost loses meaning when it makes people filthy rich but you’re right, they are the lesser evil for the time being.

maccam912 ,

Before choosing your insurance provider, google the company and “combined ratio”. Anything over 100 and they are paying out more than they are making. Investors want to see a combined ratio in the mid 90s, so if you are not an investor maybe you want the ones with high CR? Or they might be wasting it I guess, but either way less savvy I suppose.

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