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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

Pulsar ,

I was wondering the same thing this weekend after watching an absurd number of insurance commercials on each football game.

Can someone list few reputable insurance companies other than the Gecko, Emu and Flo?

aesthelete ,

Mahomes and maauto

Colorcodedresistor ,

i hop between geico, progressive, and allstate. after the 6month bait deal ends i just call and move over to the next competitors 6 month sweet deal.

It’s easy to maintain, just 3 tabs on my browser and now you don’t even have to talk to a person.

i learned after graduating in 2006 and walking face first into 2008s bullshit. if they want to hot potato lumps of debt, ill just hot potato competing services.

BeautifulMind ,
@BeautifulMind@lemmy.world avatar

It shouldn’t be, but enough people are either ignorant that it’s a racket or they profit somehow by it that nobody says anything, or they’ll call you a damned commie if you openly question powerful people like that

zepplenzap ,

If you’re in the USA I would suggest using Amica for your insurance. They are great, and I’ve never seen an advertisement for them!

Daxtron2 ,

I’ve seen a ton

kent_eh ,

I’ve never seen an advertisement for them!

I may have seen one just now.

Vilian ,

It’s not, that’s wby it only occur in USA

yoz ,

Lol

retrieval4558 ,

This is one of a thousand reasons why the entire insurance industry should be burnt to the ground

rebul ,

Surely they would be insured for that though?

Reddfugee42 ,

They’d just find a way to make us pay for it.

spearz ,

Unrelated, but I saw an ad for a cremation company on the TV the other day. They said they had a 4.5 rating on trustpilot, and I spent too long wondering who left those reviews…

Illuminostro ,

You spelled “Extortion” wrong.

scarabic ,

It should just be public. One big insurance company that covers everyone under one set of rules, with zero ad budget and total transparency to voters. Not a private company that can deny coverage and run off with profits. Not an elective product that only high risk people will get. Not a hassle that you have to sign up for and pay bills on. Just built into our taxes and public institutions. Period.

DeltaTangoLima ,
@DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com avatar

Not sure what the issue is here, but this may be a US-centric problem…?

Here in Australia, insurance companies are required to demonstrate sufficient means to cover the risk they carry on their books. We have a government body (APRA) that regulates and routinely audits this (along with other requirements).

What the company spends on coffee, furniture or marketing has no bearing on this - those are expenses for them to manage after they satisfy the above requirements.

bdonvr ,

It’s not about being able to cover their liabilities, but charging ridiculous rates partially due to the fact that they also need to pay multimillion dollar advertising budgets. Or worse, bring the price down by giving shockingly low coverage that is somehow still legal.

Worse still, our healthcare system relies nearly solely on private health insurance… and yes they do it too. See: MetLife Stadium

DeltaTangoLima ,
@DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com avatar

It’s not about being able to cover their liabilities

I’m referring to OP’s assertion that “Isn’t this our fucking money you’re meant to give out should, god forbid, something happen?”.

I don’t disagree that the insurance industry is a cottage industry, largely built on/supported by FUD, but that wasn’t the point of my reply.

AA5B ,

One of the unethical behaviors that is becoming all too common, is for an insurer to deny by default. Then if you want the reimbursement you’re owed, you have to fight for it, and not ebpveryone knows how or is willing to.

T00l_shed ,

Oh I’m sorry, being impaled on a metal pole is a pre-existing condition, so you don’t deserve coverage for it anyway! Also two hearing aids is experimental and not coveted! Mmmkay go fuck yourself byyyeeee.

Cagi ,

I live in Canada and used to work as an adjuster and dated an American broker. There are many good insurers in the US, none of them advertise. Go to an honest broker and they’ll tell you about those boring good ones.

The differences in our systems were astonishing. Those advertised insurers let you go around with basically no coverage. I can’t believe your minimum third party liability amounts, especially considering the crazy medical costs in your country. It’s just over a tenth of the minimum we allow in my province, and we have socialized health care and more robust social safety nets. A serious accident will ruin you for life if you take that cockney lizard’s policy. He’s a scam artist from the mean streets of London.

Rentlar ,

I’m nowhere close to the insurance industry but I had sort of noticed from various stories.

The idea I had of what insurance is supposed to do seems to be based on how it works in Canada. If you want to take a big risk on losing your car, home, license or whatever then paying insurance even a high amount make sense.

Comparitively in the US, particularly in healthcare you seem screwed whether you get insurance or not. Americans get the freedom to pay hundreds of dollars a month, just to have to pay a minimum of more thousands if something does happen. In Canada, we don’t have universal dental yet and a full checkup, xray, cleaning and fluoride without insurance is about 600 CAD or ~440USD. I don’t know how much dental costs down South…

mihnt ,
@mihnt@lemmy.world avatar

Teeth are optional in the U.S…

T00l_shed ,

Luxury bones. Same in Canada. Also eyes are Luxury organs.

Cagi ,

Yeah, insurance is a fundamental, necessary piece of civilization and has existed since before Hammurabi. But it has also been abused by profiteers since then too, and it’s not always easy to tell the difference. In a cut-throat, free market, capitalist driven economy, the incentive is to cover nothing for high premiums. A scam, essentially. Add a law where corporations are people and unlimited political donations is free speech and you’ll have enourmous pressure put on politicians to keep the insurance industry unregulated (except making buying it mandatory). Thus Geiko is allowed to exist. Lower premiums, but you are essentially uninsured for anything more than a minor fender bender. Paying premiums for nothing. This is bad for everyone involved in an accident except the insurance companies.

dubyakay ,

In a cut-throat, free market, capitalist driven economy, the incentive is to cover nothing for high premiums. A scam, essentially.

Wouldn’t that deter potential clients from purchasing your products though and go with the competitor who actually offers better terms?

AA5B ,

Not if you have an anthropomorphic lizard telling you to buy theirs

dubyakay ,

Shit, I’m not from the US, but now I’ve realized that their ads are so pervasive, I’ve seen them before as well. And now I also realized that we have a Canadian equivalent.

MNByChoice ,

I don’t know anything, and to avoid complications, what kinds of legal minimums does Canada require?

Cagi , (edited )

Here in BC we have a minimum of $200,000 liability insurance. We don’t separate based on property or injury, 200k covers all. But only low income drivers stop at 200K, $3Million is the most common liability amount. If you end up accidentally crippling a kid, you will require every penny that 3million. We don’t advertise our insurance at all. Insurers must have a reserve on hand to cover every single outstanding claim plus 10 million, I’m not sure what those numbers are in the US, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were much more lax. The Insurance Act of BC is a beautiful piece of legislation with the insured’s best interest in mind, not the insurer’s shareholders.

MNByChoice ,

Thank you!

The_v ,

The amount the company must maintain on hand depends on the state. In some states it’s less than 1% of the policies written. Most of the time they only hold enough out of their premiums to cover an average of 2-3 years of claims.

The reason it’s so low is because of federal disaster relief when something big happens. The insurance companies advocate for it to be called a federal disaster. Then the government steps in and foots part of the bill. The poor are usually left losing everything.

The_v ,

My wife worked for an insurance company for most of a decade as the complaint liaison with the states regulating body on insurance.

Insurance companies in the U.S. come in two types.

Type A: Rely on repeat business and word of mouth to slowly grow their business. They pay out reasonable and fair amounts based upon the loss. They follow all applicable laws/regulations and operate in good faith. These companies are quick to reject people who have bad histories.

Type B: Rely on recruiting new customers constantly by excessive advertising or purchasing other smaller companies. Pay out well below the market on anything they can and flat out refuse claims until lawsuits start. These companies routinely break state and federal laws because the fines are less than the profits. These companies prey on the lower income, elderly, and poorly informed. The larger companies have hundreds of brands to give the illusion of choice to the consumer.

Any amounts of excessive marketing by and insurance company indicates that they are shit. Also research into who owns any the brand they are are marketing. If you recognize the parent company as advertising, they are shit.

Cagi ,

That seems to line up with my reading of those heavily advertised, cheap policies. You pay for nothing then get left in the lurch, owing potentially millions. It should be illegal, it’s totally predatory.

SuiXi3D ,
@SuiXi3D@kbin.social avatar

What, are you just gonna not have insurance? Something could go wrong! You don’t wanna go bankrupt because of a health problem, do you? Also, we can’t guarantee you won’t still go bankrupt with our insurance, but you won’t have to pay for basic drugs! Maybe…

eclipse ,

I’m assuming you’re in the US.

Do non profit or cooperative insurance companies exist? They would seem like a less evil option if available.

Oyster_Lust ,
@Oyster_Lust@lemmy.world avatar

They do.

768 ,

In Germany there is VVAG, “Versicherungsverein auf Gegenseitigkeit” (insurance association based on mutuality), which is the legal form for cooperative insurance as regular cooperatives (Genossenschaften) cannot insure legally.

HobbitFoot ,

There are, but a lot of them usually require something to qualify for their coverage and aren’t as large as national companies. The smaller companies usually don’t have as large an appetite for risk, and will therefore only provide discounts to less risky drivers.

bitwolf ,

Can you share some names of them? To help me get started researching them

Ullallulloo , (edited )
@Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com avatar

Farmers, State Farm, Liberty Mutual, Thrivent, USAA, Blue Cross Blue Shield, American Family, Nationwide, etc.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance#United_Sta…

en.wikipedia.org/…/Reciprocal_inter-insurance_exc…

Radicalized ,

Corporation must grow, must consume. In capitalism, if you’re not growing you’re dying.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Business is binary. You’re a 1 or a 0. Alive, or dead.

RightHandOfIkaros ,

Why do you think getting insurance to actually pay out is so difficult?

theodewere ,
@theodewere@kbin.social avatar

not enough people vote for progressive candidates who are willing to try to take them on

UsernameHere ,

For an insurance company to exist it has to spend less covering claims than it collects in payments.

Otherwise they end up bankrupt.

Even if you got back every dollar you spent on insurance, there would be nothing left over to spend on staff or any other part of their business.

This means anyone with insurance is better off taking their payments and saving it for when they need something covered.

Insurance is a scam.

twack ,

Yes, but car, home (or renters), and health insurance are required for the average person because all of those have a reasonable chance of absolutely bankrupting a regular person for life at any moment.

The alternative is to pay more taxes and have the government provide the insurance, which may or may not be better. There are pros and cons to both.

Either way though, you need the safety net that insurance provides.

RvTV95XBeo ,

Yeah, the “insurance is a scam, just pocket the money, bro” folks really don’t understand just how royally fucked someone would be if their house burned down. Sure it’s a long shot, but me saving the $1k or so I spend each year on homeowners insurance is not going to cover me when there’s $300k in structural damage I have to deal with.

UsernameHere ,

When I was a kid my dads house caught on fire. The fire was caused by old wiring so the insurance claim was denied.

They weren’t worried about verifying the condition of the wiring when they were collecting my dad’s insurance payments. And they didn’t return the money he paid into it after denying the claim. So we ended up homeless even after my father had spent all that money on insurance to prevent it.

If he had all those insurance payments in a bank account we could’ve at least afforded a hotel or apartment while we figured out what to do.

UsernameHere ,

I’m aware some insurance is required by law.

Considering publicly traded insurance companies need to make larger profit margins than their previous year. Every year. And the government doesn’t. It’s safe to say the insurance company will deny more claims and you will get less and less than what you pay into it over time.

Either way everyone is better off saving that money so they can actually use it if they need it.

spacecowboy ,

Do not listen to this person’s advice.

driving_crooner ,
@driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br avatar

Insurance companies, specially life, usually have claim ratios (claims/premiums) of over 100% without problems, because they earn more money on investing the premiums over time that on the premiums itself.

UsernameHere ,

I’ve worked as a claims adjuster. It was my job to find ways to deny claims so that my employer could make more profit. My employer was very clear about that.

Even if the insurance company is profitable, they will always want more.

Publicly traded insurance companies have an obligation to their shareholders to make larger profits year over year. The shareholders never say “we’ve made enough profit on investing, we dont need more profit”.

shootwhatsmyname ,
@shootwhatsmyname@lemm.ee avatar

Well, it really depends on the risk of what you’re doing. Some things could really quickly get you into millions of $$$ in legal fees and other expenses for a tiny slip up, and it would be really stupid not to have some sort of backup plan to cover yourself.

eclipse ,

I’ll just go cancel my universal health care now.

UsernameHere ,

Why?

eclipse ,

Insurance is a scam

UsernameHere ,

And universal health care isn’t insurance so I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

eclipse ,

I don’t see any fundamental difference in this context. A group of individuals pay into a communal fund and access it when in need.

Some take more than others, but everyone has a safety net to access.

You could argue about premiums and co-pays but the model is the same. The only difference is whether it is taken out of taxes or paid directly.

I apologise if we are approaching this from different viewpoints and I am not understanding properly.

UsernameHere ,

The difference is…

a publicly traded insurance company is required by the shareholders that fund it to make larger profits, every year, year after year, forever.

They attempt to achieve this impossible goal of infinite growth by denying more and more claims, while charging more.

A government program like universal healthcare does not need to deny claims. Universal healthcare serves the voters that voted for it. Not shareholders that push companies to destroy themselves for infinite growth.

notapantsday ,

You’re generally correct. Insurances are a bad investment from a purely financial standpoint. Never get an insurance to save money or to avoid cost. Don’t get insurance for things that you can easily pay for from your savings or for things you can do without. For example, don’t get insurance for your flagship smartphone. Even if you can’t afford the same model again if it breaks, you can always get an entry-level or used phone for a fraction of the price which will do fine for daily tasks until you have saved up enough money.

But there are cases where losing money is just part of the problem. For example, health insurance can literally save your life by paying for a treatment you otherwise couldn’t afford. Or personal liability insurance - if you cause more damage than you can afford to pay for, you can lose your house and pretty much the kind of life you may have lived up to that point. On the other hand, if you’re already broke, living in a shitty apartment and hardly own anything of value, then there’s no point getting that insurance.

UsernameHere ,

I realize that there are situations where insurance can be beneficial.

I’m just sharing what I’ve learned from working as a claims adjuster. The company I worked for created incentives for denying claims. Customers were often lied to about what is covered by the person selling the insurance. We often shared technicalities that were found in the contract that allowed us to deny more claims.

This did not only happen at the company I worked for. It is common practice in the insurance industry.

notapantsday ,

No argument here. I recently talked to someone who works for an insurance company and he said it feels like working for the mafia.

Bongles ,

You know I used to process claims at a health insurance company in the US and while the general public consensus is that they hate that company, I’ve never seen the really scummy things people mention online about insurance. There were never incentives to deny claims or find loopholes or whatever. They just had the benefits listed, and various guidelines written out and you were just supposed to accurately process it to those guidelines, deny or pay, whatever.

I’m sure it happens, and there endless other issues, but it makes me wonder what company would risk that stuff if the one I was at didn’t.

UsernameHere ,

Insurance contracts are written/worded in a way that allow denial of most claims without much effort. But hard to understand so it is unnoticed by the customer and only the claims adjuster that has read the contract a thousand times would notice.

howrar ,

If you consider only the mean, then of course you’re going to be better off without insurance on average. But most of us don’t care about the mean. We care about the variance. And when you buy insurance, you’re reducing the variance in your life in exchange for a lower mean. The problem with insurance isn’t insurance itself, but that often you pay and get nothing in return.

rah ,

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

It’s not your money, it’s their money.

darthelmet ,

Where do they get the money from?

ImplyingImplications , (edited )

Your boss

Edit: people downvoting seem to be missing the point. You get your money from your boss but nobody would consider it your boss’ money. That’s ridiculous. So why would anyone consider money paid to an insurance company to still be their money because it came from them?

rah ,

From you. It was your money but then after you give it to them, it’s their money.

notapantsday ,

Exactly, as soon as the money goes from your bank account to theirs, they can do whatever the fuck they want with it. Not saying that’s a good thing, but that’s how the system is currently designed.

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