this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
575 points (96.9% liked)

No Stupid Questions

36169 readers
805 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee 114 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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!

[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 81 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because they make more money that way.

In order to stop them, you'd need a large percentage of customers go out of their way to purchase policies from companies with the lowest advertising budgets.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 67 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

In order to stop them, you’d need a large percentage of customers go out of their way to purchase policies from companies with the lowest advertising budgets.

Or we'd need to recognize incorporation as the social contract that it was supposed to be, and start demanding public benefits in exchange for the companies being granted those privileges.

Merely restricting advertising is thinking extremely small compared to what they owe us, but hey, might as well throw it on the list anyway.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

to purchase policies from companies with the lowest advertising budgets.

This was basically my grandfather's modus operandi. He wouldn't buy anything he saw in an ad. Dude was a nuclear physicist, so maybe he was on to something.

And while it'd be pretty hard to do that today, I always try and keep it in mind when I buy stuff. I ask myself if I feel like I'm being pressured to buy something, and to try to always be willing to walk away without buying. You can always decide later, and buy it then.

[–] njordomir@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Bought a bottle of scotch once that said "The greatest advertisement is a quality product." I would have to agree.

[–] Deiv@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

The funny thing is that was the advertisement

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] TheActualDevil@sffa.community 7 points 1 year ago

Dude was a nuclear physicist, so maybe he was on to something.

Let's not go attributing success in one area as relevant to being smart in another, unrelated area, even when they're right. I prefer the other guy who worked in the industry agreeing rather than a nuclear physicist. Unless nuclear physicists typically get their degree by researching the insurance industry and their quality in relationship to advertisement budgets.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] retrieval4558@mander.xyz 63 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

[–] spearz@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

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…

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Vilian@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Colorcodedresistor@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] _TheThunderWolf_@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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 🙁

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Cagi@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

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.

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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...

[–] Cagi@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Nemo@midwest.social 20 points 1 year ago

That's why I purchase a plan from a company that doesn't advertise.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 11 points 1 year ago

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@thelemmy.club 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

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

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Paranomaly@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Adalast@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] yesman@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] eclipse@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] SoupBrick@yiffit.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Advertising. They make it seem like the best thing since sliced bread so if someone is considering changing providers, that company comes to mind. The more they repeat it the more likely people are to think of it when considering options. It doesn't work on everyone, but this tactic has enough supporting data for them to keep dumping money into it.

To answer your question about why they are allowed to do it, I would imagine there are little to no regulations on how much is spent on advertising campaigns. It all depends on what a business can afford to spend. Since insurance companies are all about denying coverage, I'd imagine they have quite a bit to dump into advertising. I haven't looked into it that much, but it looks like they can also claim these as business expenses and get tax write-offs. It wouldn't be surprising if they tacked on other expenses to the advertising budget and claimed those as write-offs as well.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] maccam912@programming.dev 10 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

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%

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 year ago

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@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

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

[–] MonsiuerPatEBrown@reddthat.com 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

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.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] splendoruranium@infosec.pub 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] macrocephalic@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (8 children)

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.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

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

[–] zepplenzap@lemmy.one 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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!

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago

I've never seen an advertisement for them!

I may have seen one just now.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Pulsar@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›