Ask one and ten will bibbity back

But which mascot will get my business?

You can’t watch YouTube without getting an insurance ad reminding you that you might be paying too much. Now that I have left my employment, I figured I would see if I could bring my bill down a bit. There’s no shortage of mascots who’ve been angling for my business, but who to choose?

The British Gecko Lizard is endearing, but charm is not enough, and the idea of buying your insurance from a creature that is literally cold-blooded - well, you were warned.

“I’d like to make a claim.”

“Sorry, mate, we don’t pay out. It’s right there in the fork suggestion.”

“The what?”

“The fork suggestion. It’s Cockney rhyming slang! You take words, rhyme them, then find synonyms. Fork, tine. Suggestion, hint. Fork Suggestion, tine hint, fine print.”

“How the hell am I supposed to know I had to read the fork suggestion?”

“Well, you clicked Ocular Villain.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Look, mate. Ocular, Eye, right? Eye, I. Villain as in Simon Legree of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ So Legree / Agree. Ocular Villian, Eye Legree, I agree. You clicked it. Anyone born within the sound of the Bow Bells of St. Mary would know that AAUUUEUEEEEEEEE”

(Disgusting squishing sound as I step on him.)

Nor do I care one way or the other about Flo from Progressive, who seems have been doing the commercials for thirty years and possibly lives with Madge the Hairdresser in a Boston Marriage, or the Geico Caveman, or the sports-bros from State Farm, or Sam Elliot bringing his twinkly cowboy charm to USAA. They all did their job: made me aware of the brand. But I’m not going with the higher-priced outfit because I think the Caveman ads have an clever undercurrent of passive-aggressive rage.

My first mistake was clicking on a Google link that had the name of the company I had Googled. Stupid me, trusting Google, I know. The top hit for the company was actually an ad for a website that compares rates, and it was only after I’d finished that I realized what I’d done. It had sent my interest in insurance to EVERY. SINGLE. COMPANY in the Western Hemisphere, and within an hour I was bibbertied by a dozen insurance agents by text and email.

(Bibberty: v., to be annoyed by insurance companies. From the Liberty Mutual ads in which a smug punchable actor improvises the line “Liberty Bibberty” in an outtake. See also, emu’d.)

One of my favorite emails was from some guy named Frank who addressed me by my first name, and told me that the deal was still available today, if I wanted to talk. As if we’d been negotiating for weeks with this guy, meeting in conference rooms and coffee shops, and there was a perishable offer on the table. Frank, we have no table. I let most of them languish, and felt a bit bad - they’d probably paid for these leads. These were the good leads. The Glengarry Glen Ross leads that got you a shot at a Caddy. I turn this down, Frank gets nothing but steak knives.

All of the quotes I got were less than I was paying, but of course the details, that’s where the devil hunches, grinning. Your home insurance is lower, but your deductible is six billion dollars. You car insurance is lower, but does not cover some things, like your car.

One of the things that affected the quotes was the deplorable fact that I had, in the past, had the temerity to put in a claim. It was for hail damage. This made me a slightly bigger risk, because apparently I was one of those reckless people who just steered his house right into a hailstorm.

I can understand their position: well, if this guy files a claim for hail and cites the “hail damage insurance” provision, what’s to stop him from filing another claim when his house burns down from a lightning strike? Perhaps he has angered God. Policies don’t cover Acts of God. Policies don’t cover smiting. When Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt her husband couldn’t collect, since she wasn’t technically dead, just transmuted. Depending on your religious views, an insurance agency that holds to the doctrine of predestination would regard everything as an Act of God.

I do not want to argue theistic determinism and free will with a British lizard, so I’m going with the Caveman. They may represent the same company, but the Caveman would be more likely to approve a claim for hail damage. Cold rocks from sky bad! Ogg understand. Ogg grant full replacement.