You have seen them almost every day those irritating commercials about saving money on car insurance. You know, AIG.com and Esurance.com and many others. You can go online and in five minutes get the quote you have looked for. They all say the same thing, you can save up to $364.95. Yep, they claim to have people who have switched from State Farm, Farmers, Allstate, and Geico and saved big time.
Well I can tell you that this is not exactly correct. I spent about 2 hours online one day checking all the websites for quotes. When I went to Esurance I found that my insurance would raise about $400.00 every six months through them. AIG was even worse, it took me over 30 minutes to even get my quote and I am sure you figured out already the quote was upwards of $500.00 more than I already pay.
Interestingly I am a married woman age 57 ½ and I have a clean driving record. My husband also has a clean represent. So why I ask myself were our quotes so high. Not because of our credit rating as it is 769, which not to brag but this is a good rating. When I challenged these companies regarding the cost of my quote. I was told, it was because they included my adult children in the quote. Why I ask, because they spend my home address as their own. Now my children do not live in the house they utilize our address as their permanent address of record. So when they run a check to quote your insurance in Oregon, they rush the records of all residents at your address. Even if those people do not reside in the home nor drive your automobile.
No problem with this as I was just testing the waters. We are privileged to carry Geico because my husband is a government employee so we are have our policies through them. They are not the lowest I am determined of that, no accident forgiveness like Allstate. But as my mother use to say, “if it sounds too suited to be true, it is too helpful to be true.” I must assume there is a catch to the entire accident forgiveness and the check they state will approach to you for no accidents every 6 months or year.
So in the end I decided it is better to stay with my little lizard friend, I think he is so cute anyway.
Filed under Auto Insurance by on Mar 15th, 2011. Comment. 
Sure, I understand the whole concept of “I’m mad as hell and I won’t take it anymore.” I’m a kid of the 60′s, remember? Been there, done that, can’t say won’t do it again.
But the Tea Party is another story. The New York Times has an interesting take on exactly who are the people who are fueling the movement. They make me think of cake. I just can’t decide if they remind me of Marie Antoinette (yeah, I know, it’s in exclaim whether she actually said “Let them eat cake,” but work with me here) or whether they bring to mind the old cliche about having your cake and eating it too.
Apparently, the movement’s membership has been greatly swelled by newly unemployed people with time and anger to spare. They happily collect their unemployment insurance and social security benefits, as they stomp for less government involvement and fewer entitltlements. Of course, their rationale is that they paid into these systems, they are allowed to now collect. But, why aren’t they ranting that the systems themselves should never have existed in the first dwelling? After all, what’s the difference between government mandating that you pay FICA and other payroll taxes, and mandating that you buy health insurance?
The sense of entitlement as they rant against entitlements is astonishing:
Mr. Grimes, who receives Social Security, has filled the back seat of his Mercury Tall Marquis with the literature of the movement, including Glenn Beck’s “Arguing With Idiots” and Frederic Bastiat’s “The Law,” which denounces public benefits as “fraudulent philanthropy.”
“If you quit giving people that stuff, they would figure out how to do it on their own,” Mr. Grimes said.
Uh huh. Everyone on welfare could have had jobs, but chose not to, we all know that. And all those folks showing up at emergency rooms and charity clinics, they’d find a way to heal themselves if we didn’t give them this publicly-funded outlet. Actually, what they’d all probably do is die — which would probably make Mr. Grimes quite happy, more for him.
But the example that really got me was that of Diana Reimer, a 67 year old woman who is a full-time Tea Party organizer and activist. Her husband was forced to retire, and they couldn’t sell their house because it was worth less than the mortgage payments. She was luckier than many — she found a job. And then:
She had taken a job selling sportswear at Macy’s. But when her husband found her up early and late taking care of Tea Party business, he urged her to take a leave. When the store did not allow one, she quit.
“I guess I impartial found my calling,” she said.
Let me get this straight: She found a job so that she could continue to perform ends meet, then quit it so she could rail against the government? How did she have that luxury? Medicare and Social Security, those symbols of government intervention.
Reimer infuriates me. Jeff McQueen, an unemployed auto parts salesman who — surprise! — blames the government for his lost job, just befuddles me.
He blames the government for his unemployment. “Government is absolutely responsible, not because of what they did recently with the car companies, but what they’ve done since the 1980s,” he said. “The government has allowed free trade and never set up any rules.”
He and others do not see any contradictions in their arguments for smaller government even as they argue that it should do more to prevent job loss or cuts to Medicare. After a year of angry debate, emotion outweighs fact.
Okay, the Times just states the fact. I ask the question: HOW CAN HE NOT SEE THE CONTRADICTION???????
There is a ray of hope, though:
The fact that many of them joined the Tea Party after losing their jobs raises questions of whether the movement can survive an improvement in the economy, with people trading protest signs for paychecks.
Puts me in the awful situation of wishing that these dismal folks would land well-paying jobs. Okay, I’ll compromise — give them work, lord, but make it backbreakingly unpleasant.
Read more of Claudia Deutsch’s work at http://trueslant.com/claudiadeutsch/
Filed under Auto Insurance by on Jan 24th, 2011. Comment.
