Why are all Insurance Commercials so insulting? Here's a quick explanation

 

Notice how commercials for insurance- be it for cars, homes or health care- never fail to treat the audience like we're all toddlers with bricks for brains, and tell us nothing or next to nothing about the benefits of the product being sold?  Instead we get CGI lizards and emus and Jake from State Farm stalking Pat Mahomes and if we have any brain cells at all (commenters on this YouTube post are obviously exempted) we are left wondering what on Earth any of this has to do with insuring our cars or homes or health.

Until now.  Because I've got the answer for you, free of charge, no stupid mascot or overexposed sports figures necessary.

Let's start with car insurance.  In every state in the country except New Hampshire (the weird state,) car insurance is an absolute requirement for legal use of the public roadways.  Want to operate a motor vehicle beyond your driveway?  You MUST purchase a minimum level of insurance from a licensed insurance broker.  

Now let's talk about home insurance.  Oddly, this is not technically required anywhere in the United States as long as you own your home outright.  However, if you are like the vast majority of home "owners" under the age of 60, a financial institution holds the mortgage on that house and every single one WILL require that you carry some form of insurance coverage on the home you jointly own.  And if you rent?  Landlords pretty much universally require that you carry some level of renter's insurance. 

Finally, let's look at health insurance.  From 2010 to 2019 there was an absolute legal requirement for all American citizens to carry a minimal level of health insurance from a licensed provider.  The federal requirement went away in 2019, but realistically the massive expense connected to health care represents a de facto requirement.  Sure, you can opt out of the health care insurance system- but you'll be one bad slip away from opting in to bankruptcy if you do.  Health insurance doesn't NEED to be a legal requirement any more than breathing does.  

See my point?  Insurance Companies don't create ads to convince you that you need to purchase their product.  They don't need to.  You have to purchase their product.  All these stupid commercials are doing is trying to convince you to buy THEIR version (because they've got a CGI Emu) instead of the OTHER GUY'S version (even though they've got a CGI Lizard) or that OTHER version (because they've got that old character actor you remember from the Spider-Man films) or still ANOTHER version (because they've got Jake and Pat Mahomes.)  They are appealing to a captive audience, so they aren't interested in selling us on the virtues of that product.  They are interested in planting their mascots into our brains so that when we buy what we HAVE to buy, we remember the cartoon character or that football player who used to win Super Bowls.  

Don't believe me?  Check out the comments.  I dare you.

Arsenio Hall, Payday Loans, and the Sad, Sad World of 2026

 

Once, there were loan sharks who worked out of the shadows of the back alleys.  Today, there are Payday loans available out of licensed, 100 percent legal "money stores" on every other corner of suburbia. 

Once, there were bookies.  Today, you can gamble using a super-cool phone app sold to you by every Hollywood A-lister and sports hero through ads shown during actual sporting events and financing entire pre-game and post-game shows.  

I really don't know which is worse- payday loans which charge interest rates which used to be illegal (until the Supreme Court in it's infinite wisdom decided that laws preventing the exploitation of economically desperate people were Unconstitutional) or commercials for gambling apps which make addiction look like the coolest thing imaginable and Good Clean Fun until you're evicted and your wife leaves with the kids and the dog you can't afford anymore anyway.

A few simple questions for Febreze Users

 

When you spill something on the floor, do you just throw a rug over the mess and go on with your life?

If you were to accidentally punch a hole in the wall, would your solution be to hang a portrait over it?

Is your response to the Check Engine light a piece of black tape covering up the the Check Engine light?

If the answer to all of these questions is "no," why would you ever "address" bad odors in your house with Febreze?  How does introducing an odor to overwhelm another odor accomplish anything positive?

I know that cleaning is not fun.  But neither is mold or germs.  And once you reach adulthood, you really should move beyond ignoring problems.  Just sayin.

My annual working vacation is upon me

 

Before dawn tomorrow, an Uber will (hopefully) arrive to whisk me off to National Airport, where an American Airlines plane will (hopefully) whisk me off to Kansas City, where I will spend a week accurately (hopefully) scoring Advanced Placement Exams, just as I have every year Except the Two Of Which We Must Not Speak since 2008.

Which means a week of scrambled eggs, veggie sausage, and lots and lots of coffee and Diet Coke and (hopefully) not too much of the candy on the table, walks during lunch break and the gym and pool every evening.  And no more screen time beyond what needs to be done to score the exams.  

So, no new posts until June 9.  Please enjoy the archives and see you back then (hopefully.)

Another stupid 4Imprint ad

 

If someone asked me while walking through some parking garage if I'm "4 imprint certain," I'd tell them that one thing I'm certain of is that a parking garage has an almost unlimited number of places in which to dump a body. 

That being said, I'm less than two days away from heading off to grade AP exams for an 18th straight year, which means it's time to pick up another complimentary refillable water bottle with the College Board AP Logo stamped on the front.  Back in the good old days, we'd also get umbrellas, backpacks, little blankets...and I still have my coffee tumbler from 2010.  But since just before COVID it's been that water bottle and nothing but that water bottle.  Oh well.  I'd probably lose anything they'd give me within a few hours anyway.  Unless they give us another coffee tumbler this year.  That'd be nice.

This CustomInk ad....

 

If the "TUMBLERS!" woman is the brains of this company, I think I've figured out why the investors pulled their funding.  

Meanwhile...yeah....I'm sure that the way to win back investor confidence is with junk swag like tumblers.  When's the IPO, guys? I've got my money ready!

A few random points about these stupid Carvana Ads

 

1.  If Carvana makes you an instant, sight-unseen offer on your car, and you don't think you are being ripped off with a low bid, well, insert some cliche about a bridge in Brooklyn here.  Earth to these morons:  Carvana is NOT in the business of losing money.  Carvana will NOT offer you one penny more than it thinks it has to for your ten-year old Toyota Rav4.  If the offer was $16,000 (yeah, right) there is something seriously missing in this story.  This isn't 2020 with COVID shortages.

2. Why do these people "need" to sell these cars?  It's safe to assume they are paid for- there's no talk of negative equity or paying off bank notes.  Why are you selling a paid-off car?  Is it the obvious, depressing reason- because you want a new one to show well for your neighbors?  It's like we are addicted to making payments.  If the car is in such good shape that Carvana wants to offer you $16,000 why don't you JUST KEEP DRIVING IT YOU MORON?