You know the Dean Winters “Mayhem” ads where Allstate is basically saying "yes we’re expensive but if you save a bunch of money with our competition they might not actually pay up.
So if your garage roof collapses onto your car or your GPS directs you into another car, is Allsate going to pay but GEICO or the General won’t? If the competition will why aren’t they complaining about misleading advertising?
I’d hope that person would get their license revoked.
It has to be true. Its on TV.
I think Allstate is referring to their ability to pay, rather than their willingness. It’s a bit exaggerated when using an example of a single car accident or single incident at a home. However, during a major crisis such as a devastating hurricane I guess it is possible for an issuer to not have enough funds to cover all the claims. I think Allstate is trying to convey that they are strong enough that you never need to be concerned that they’ll be there when you need them.
I’ve always had the impression that seriously cut-rate insurance companies will have more exceptions in their policies. And I’m sure that there are some dodgy insurance operations that do their absolute best to find a reason to deny every claim. Of course, that’s just a vague opinion I have, with no data or experience to back it up.
Now there is a bit of data that may be relevant. I can’t find actual claim payment rates by company, but there are some relevant customer satisfaction surveys. For example, JD powers has ratings on “property claim satisfaction”. Interestingly, Allstate has relatively poor ratings all around. Perhaps this new marketing campaign is an attempt to directly address this…
ETA: Also, I’ve always interpreted those commercials to mean that comprehensive coverage from Allstate will cover just about any random disaster. If you get minimum collision or liability coverage from another insurer, there are a lot of things that won’t be covered. But other insurers have comprehensive policies of course, and you’d be just as screwed with Allstate’s minimal coverage… so these commercials are mostly marketing double speak, IMO.
I think lazybratsche has it.
Since the ads never directly reference StateFarm or GEICO or whoever, they have plausible deniability that the ads aren’t about them. What they are really referring to when they say ‘cut-rate insurance’, is those fly-by-night minimum coverage places.
Unsurprisingly, places that offer you the minimum legal coverage for the lowest possible price do not pay out for stupid things like a premium comprehensive policy would.
It’s just advertising.
I have Allstate for both my cars and my house (I get a bundled discount). My only experience with them so far is when a hurricane blew off a bunch of shingles on my garage. Allstate sent me a suggested contractor, who wanted to only replace the missing shingles and would have resulted in a hideous looking mismatched roof of different shingle colors. So I went to another contractor instead who gave me a quote. I submitted this quote to Allstate, who then sent an adjuster out to my home to take a look at the damage. After spouting all kinds of nonsense about Praise Jesus and how he wanted me to get what I was due, he used tables of values to calculate what Allstate would pay for. I ignored the Praise Jesus stuff and told the contractor what Allstate would pay. The contractor accepted it, and that was that.
The Praise Jesus guy made the experience a little humorous, but the long and short of it is that I had to negotiate with them to get the roof repaired properly and Praise Jesus or not, this involved back and forth between me, Allstate, and the contractor. Allstate did not just happily pay to get it fixed right, no matter what their commercials say.
ETA: I haven’t had to file a claim for any of my cars yet.
AFAIK, that’s generally covered by reinsurance.
“Ads”. There’s your answer right there. Advertisements are, pretty much by definition, not true. Or else it would be called “information” and people wouldn’t have to pay so much to cram it in your face.
Does anybody really think there is an insurance company that doesn’t “do their absolute best to find a reason to deny every claim”, as lazybratsche says? If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have shareholders, or ads, and would be called a “charity”.
I wondered about the Ad with the mid life crises Chopper. He lets a potential buyer test ride it and naturally the idiot wrecks it. Don’t worry the Ad says, Allstate has you covered.
But would they? I’m pretty sure some policies won’t cover other drivers. They only cover the person that insured the vehicle. I think you can buy an option to cover other drivers?
Anyway, the Ad didn’t get into that technicality. They just say Allstate has you covered.
I believe the liability insurance policies are required by law to cover any driver, so long as they had permission to drive the car. With collision coverage, the industry standard is that anyone with permission and not specifically excluded is covered, but there are policies out there that only cover drivers named on the policy.
So that ad may be a good example of something a cheapo insurance policy wouldn’t cover, although like yellowjacketcoder said, more likely one issued by a hole-in-the-wall company than a major discount insurer like Geico or Progressive, as the ad may be implying.
I always just understood it to mean that Allstate provides more comprehensive car insurance. Your “cut-rate car insurance” is generally just providing the state minimum required liability. Thus, when your roof collapses on your car, Allstate would cover it and something like The General probably doesn’t cover it by default. To that extent, it would seem to me that their ads are true. But at the same time, I also imagine that they provide lower levels of insurance too, they just want to get people thinking about car insurance as more than minimum liability. I’d also imagine that people who tend to only get minimum liability will also be people who either don’t have much money anyway or have been in enough accidents that they’re so much of a risk to cover that they can’t afford decent coverage, both of which probably aren’t very profitable clients.
I don’t have Allstate, I have State Farm and I have comprehensive and all that other kind of stuff they talk about. Plus, I’ve never had anything but exceptional service from them. I’ve been rear-ended by people with them, and even called them up and had them handle ones where it was on someone else’s insurance where they take care of it and bill their insurance all for me. So it’s not like Allstate is the only one in that market; then again, the recent State Farm commercials with the jingle and “you’re covered” seems to say the same thing.
Anyway, just seems like you have those types of insurance companies for people that want more coverage, the more sort of general stuff like Geico, that goes after people who want inexpensive coverage, and then the minimum liability that go after the people who can’t afford anything else and otherwise risk going uninsured.
I have State Farm also, and have had similar positive experiences. I don’t see these ads as against Geico or State Farm, but rather against small insurance companies with small agent and claims networks. Anyone can buy on the net now, but you can get screwed if there aren’t enough agents to handle your claims during a disaster. They are trying to say it isn’t all about how easy it is to pay your bill. State Farm and Geico push the number of agents they have also.
BTW, the “people who switched to us saved money” message is one of the most bogus uses of statistics out there. Since no one switches unless they save money, each and every insurance company can semi-honestly claim that those who switch did. Textbook example of a biased sample.
Yeah, I remember when one of my kids asked me why we didn’t switch to GEICO and save $300 or whatever. It was neat watching the light of understanding come on as I explained that concept. It helped raise his defenses against advertising.
As someone who has spent the last 10 years suing insurance companies, I can confidently state that Allstate has earned its poor customer satisfaction ratings. While no insurance company seems happy to pay even legitimate claims, Allstate is one of the worst. (they start acting like it’s their money, rather than money they’re holding for their customers in the case of a covered loss)