Why I won't be buying insurance from Allstate

[hatman]

Have you seen this ad from Allstate insurance?

It's part of their series of "Mayham" commercials, where the personification of Mayham takes various forms (distracted teenage girl, windstorm, dog, etc.), causing damage to cars.

In this one, Mayham is a "hot babe out jogging." A man driving by gets distracted looking at her "headband" and crashes his car. Cheap insurance wouldn't cover that, but Allstate will.

What we can learn from this:

• An attractive woman out on the sidewalk is pure Mayham. Cars will crash, and it's her fault.
  
• It's okay to objectify women.
  
• It's not just okay; it's funny.
  
• Not only that, it's perfectly natural, perhaps even unavoidable, that men will ogle women to the point that they lose control of their cars.
  
• Unlike other insurance companies, Allstate understands this and will cover the damages.
  
• If you are an Allstate customer, even if you're not so crude, sexist, and irresponsible as to put lives (including your own) in danger just to get a better look at a female stranger, your premiums will help Allstate cover people who do.

That's Allstate's stand.

Remind me never to buy insurance from them.

Comments

[annabtg.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I don't know. My mind didn't reach that far. I basically interpreted it as "no matter why you got into an accident, we'll give you coverage". Which is a pretty good reason to buy insurance from them; you never know what might happen.

If you are an Allstate customer, even if you're not so crude, sexist, and irresponsible as to put lives (including your own) in danger just to get a better look at a female stranger, your premiums will help Allstate cover people who do.

Well, that would annoy me, if it wasn't for the fact that the crude, sexist and irresponsible people in question are also paying money for their insurance. (And that the more irresponsible they are and the more stupid accidents they get into, the more they pay, etc..)

Lastly, I didn't ROFL, or even chuckle, but I did find it slightly amusing. I think it's going for comic exaggeration, rather than objectifying women and being insulting - hence the guy in a suit with the pink headband, as opposed to an actual blonde busty babe.

Just my two cents! :)

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Well, that is the idea they're trying to convey. Like I said, it's part of a series. The same guy in the suit portrays various aspects of Mayham. He's the personification of chaos and disaster. A teenage girl, texting while driving, gets upset and distracted and plows into your car. A violent windstorm breaks a large tree branch, dropping it on your car. That sort of thing. Mayham happens, and it's not your fault. Other insurance companies won't cover it, but Allstate will.

(Which is somewhat deceptive. The windstorm would be categorized as an "act of God" by most insurance companies. Many policies won't cover that sort of thing. But, if you're willing to pay more, you can get a more comprehensive policy that will. On the other hand, most policies will cover you if someone smashes into your car in the parking lot. Accidents when you're behind the wheel vary, but you can buy a "no fault" policy. Costs more, but you're covered no matter who caused it.)

Now, I've seen a couple of people object to the teenage girl one as sexist and demeaning. Which it kind of is. But there are actual brainless teens (not all of them girls) who will do wildly irresponsible things like that.

What makes this ad different is that Mayham is now a "hot babe." That's the first problem right there. Two problems, actually. The smaller one is calling her a "hot babe," which is somewhat sexist, objectifying, demeaning, etc. The bigger problem, though, is the explicit message: an attractive woman out in public is a source of Mayham, on par with a violent storm or a an irresponsible teen.

A teen hits your car, it's not your fault. A storm smashes your car, it's not your fault. A beautiful woman walks by and you get so distracted staring at her that you run right off the road and crash into a lamppost... it's not your fault.

Which means that it's her fault. For daring to appear in public (fully clothed) while being beautiful. She steps outside, and Mayham will follow. Men will stare at her, and they won't be able to control themselves. That's just how things are. It's not their problem, not their fault. In which case it's irresponsible for her to walk out the door in anything mildly revealing.

Not only is the guy not chastised for behaving like a pig, his behavior is treated as if it were obviously natural. More than that, we're explicitly told that the company thinks it's okay and will ensure that he will face no consequences.

Having a guy filling the role may or may not help. But, to me, it's the essence of objectification. "I'm [Mayham is] a hot babe out jogging." It doesn't matter who she is or exactly what she looks like. She is a "hot babe" - any hot babe - and therefore something to be stared at. Eye candy, nothing more. (Even if all she's trying to do is get some daily exercise.)

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

As for the issue of money - insurance companies pool the money they take in from premiums. They spread the risk around. If there's a 5% chance of an accident, then they take in enough money from 100 people to cover the expenses of 5 accidents, and pay out that money to the 5 people who crashed. It's just a question of which 5 that'll be this year.

The accident shown will be very expensive to fix. Looks like a lot of damage to the front of the car - including the engine. Not to mention the cost of the lamppost. That's going to come out to a lot more than that guy pays in premiums. It only works out because other customers paid in and Mayham didn't strike them.

Most insurance policies would look at this way - you were behind the wheel, you got distracted, and you crashed. It was entirely your fault. So we're not covering it. (As mentioned, you can choose to pay extra for no-fault coverage. From a number of companies.) But Allstate here is saying that stuff like this should be covered by any good insurance company, and they will pay out. They're condoning that behavior, and they're using the pooled resources from a number of insurance policies to cover the resulting damage.

They don't even say that his premiums will go up. (Not every company or policy works that way.) In fact, another of their ads tells us that they offer "accident forgiveness" where your premiums won't go up after your first accident.

They do have other ads in favor of safe driving, highlighting bad behavior (like eating while driving) and telling you that they offer incentives to drivers who don't have accidents (your deductible gradually goes down over the years). But this one seems to carry the opposite message.

[annabtg.livejournal.com]

A beautiful woman walks by and you get so distracted staring at her that you run right off the road and crash into a lamppost... it's not your fault.

Which means that it's her fault. For daring to appear in public (fully clothed) while being beautiful.

I can see why you interpret it that way. I just didn't make the connection with the other ads. I admit that it seems to contrast with their mood.

But I'm more inclined to think of it as an unwitting and unfortunate diversion from the spirit of the previous ads, and not as an attempt to portrait beautiful women as causes of mayhem and blame them for an accident of that nature. I think most people would interpret it that way, but I might be having too much faith in humanity :p

Check out this interaction from YouTube:

[user #1]
Unbelievably misogynistic and offensive.

[user #2]
But funny. Besides, its not talking about the female race as a whole. Actually, it is more sexist towards men, saying that we all have to check out women and stop paying attention to other things. But I still find it funny.

Emphasis mine. Like this user (who sounds like it's a man), I saw the ad and put the blame on the man.

We can agree to disagree, though. :)

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Sorry if I came on too strong. Got caught up in unpacking ideas. (Also, I didn't think you'd be familiar with a lot of US-only stuff, like the other ads and the specifics of how car insurance works here.)

Hadn't really thought of blaming the guy. I wonder what that says about me. Though I think it's more because the guy is shown as the customer, the victim of Mayham that Allstate is there to support. Hard to blame him in that context, even if he is acting like a pig. Still, it's a point. The flipside of the implication that a "hot babe" is an aspect of Mayham is that men can't control themselves around one.

But yeah... agree to disagree, I think.

Thanks for your thoughts. :)