SafeAuto goes old school in introducing a new insurance program.

SafeAuto Commercial

Jingle Singers: Norm, for SAFEAUTO!

Norm Macdonald walks into the scene with two cars behind him. One is trashed and one is very nice.

Norm: What is the difference between this car, and this car?

Norm points to the nice car first and then the junker.

Norm: (pointing to the nice car) This one is owned by someone who is a little farther along in life; while this one is owned by someone who lives in constant fear of tetanus (pointing to the junker).

Now, SafeAuto can insurance both cars of course, but if you have something newer make sure to ask for our new “morenimum” coverage. More coverage, same great value.

Screen changes to a red road with a red car flying down it as Norm is still talking.

Norm: 1-800-SAFEAUTO. Drive safe, spend less

Screen changes again, this time to the SAFEAUTO logo, their 800 number under it, “Drive Safe Spend Less”, and finally the webpage safeauto.com/morenimum.

Point of the SafeAuto Commercial

SafeAuto Insurance has 3 objectives in this commercial.

First, they are going for funny by bringing in Norm Macdonald. Second, they are introducing a new product to the public. Third, they are trying to reach out to an older group of drivers to expand their customer base.

What SafeAuto Wants You to Do

SafeAuto is generally associated with younger, inexperienced drivers that are looking for just state minimum coverages. With this commercial, spokesperson, and new product SafeAuto is trying to attract the attention of driver’s 35 and older.

Most drivers over 35 are exactly at that place Norm is talking about. They are a little further along in life to have nicer vehicles now, and they are beyond the point of being able to protect everything they own with only state minimum coverages. Not only could they not protect everything, they are more likely to have a lienholder on those nicer vehicles that will require them to carry more than the state minimums.

Also, Norm Macdonald is someone that mostly the 30+ crowd can associate more with because of his time on Saturday Night Live. So they are wanted this specific group of drivers to at least want to find out more about SafeAuto.

My Opinion of the SafeAuto Commercial

I am feeling mediocre about this commercial at best. There is just something boring about this commercial that I just can’t pinpoint. But I did pull this one to analyze because it had Norm Macdonald in it and I remember watching him do the Weekend Report on Saturday Night Live. So SafeAuto did catch my interest with this spokesperson.

But, the commercial itself didn’t leave me wanting to find out more about this new morenimum coverage.

I would have to give this SafeAuto commercial a thumbs down for not peaking my interest and a thumbs up for bringing in Norm Macdonald.

We keep telling you that you need to get insurance quotes from different companies every now and then, now we have the research to back us up.

If you go back over the many posts we have on Car Insurance Guidebook, you will see a trend when we talk about insurance premiums. We regularly advocate that you contact different insurance companies for new quotes on your insurance coverage. We do this because of the financial benefits it can bring you on your insurance premium, from what we have seen and heard from other insurance professionals.

Now, we have research findings to solidify what we have been telling you for so long.

New Research on Why You Need to Get Insurance Quotes

New research findings from the Office of Public Insurance Counsel (OPIC), a consumer advocate group, found that people that stay with their car insurance companies for more than 2 to 3 years could be paying more for their insurance than they need to.

Their research found that people that switched to a new insurance company, after being with their company for 2 to 3 years, had an average of a 5.2% decrease in their premium. The longer a person was with an insurance company, the more their premium decreased when they decided to get insurance with another company.

The research from OPIC showed that the savings peaked at 19%. The ones that saved the most were the ones that had been with their insurance company for 8 years or more.

Why People Don’t Get Insurance Quotes to Save Money

You would think that saving money would seal the deal on at least calling around to get insurance quotes from other companies. However, there are many reasons that people don’t.

First, the difficulty of getting everything switched over stops people before they even start. Switching insurance coverage to another company requires a lot of work, especially if you have multiple policies.

Second, loyalty prevents people from switching. They have been with the same insurance company since they were 16 and have never had an accident, so they have no problem with staying with the same insurance company. They also have never contacted another insurance company for a quote, so they have no idea they could be possibly paying less for their insurance.

Finally, fear prevents people from switching. They have had an accident and their insurance company took care of everything, so they are worried that if they switch the new insurance company won’t be as good with claims.

Whatever your reason for not switching, you may decide otherwise once you take a chance and get insurance quotes from new companies to see how much more you are paying right now.

hashtags or pound symbols represent messages, topics and unique subject matter that you discuss

How today’s successful agents build relationships, brands and customer loyalty using these top ten hashtags in the car insurance industry on twitter…

Did you hear about the Actuary who won a recent industry award for his research on Tweets about major insurers?  Roosevelt Mosely Jr., a principal at Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, tracked tweets that mentioned State Farm, Geico, and Allstate, and then crunched the numbers he found.

Being an Actuary, it was in his blood to use his research to build a taxonomy of hundreds of identifying keywords such as the GEICO pig or State Farm’s Jake and then analyze the results.

While this type of research may seem like a waste of time to veteran insurance agents, it is actually a significant indication of how the industry is changing amongst the new generation of agents who have grown up using social media to connect with others and to self-promote.

Today’s successful agents forge connections with clients through electronic means.  According to the 2012 Insurance Journal Young Agents Survey, “75.2% have Facebook pages, 73.7% use LinkedIn, 28.5% use Twitter, 84.7% use smartphones, and 10% write blogs, all for work as an independent insurance agent.”

If you are one of the many agents out there who prefers using social media to attract clients to you rather than cold calling them, you are on the cutting edge of establishing and continuing client relationships, and delivering high value customer service.Certainly you are on Twitter, but how do you search tweets to stay connected to other industry professionals and potential clients?

Dawn Foster of fastwonderblog.com has a comprehensive 2 minute video that visually demonstrates how to run a list of Twitter keywords though Yahoo Pipes.  This is a more complex way of searching for #car insurance industry hash tags than using the standard Twitter search, but if you get the hang of it, this method can yield more thorough results.

When doing my own search on Twitter for popular #car insurance industry hash tags,  I took what I learned from reading about Mr. Mosely’s research, and I Did not search for #Progressive (too many political posts came up); Removed all punctuation and symbols (except # and @); Even tried searching some popular hash tags with misspellings intentionally included.

The 10 most popular industry hash tags I found in my research in September 2012 were:

#insurance

#risk

#fraud

#cheapcarinsurance

#autoinsurance

#reducecarinsurance

#carinsurancetips

#Geico

#Allstate

#StateFarm

What car insurance industry hashtags do you get good results searching for on Twitter?

Allstate decides to take a little artistic license with the well-known, Cinderella fairytale.

Summary

Usually I give a full summary of the commercial here, including everything that is said and done. However, with this one there isn’t enough room to provide the summary and analysis. This commercial is 2 ½ minutes long, so I am just going to give a quick rundown of what happens. I really recommend that you watch the commercial, instead of only reading the summary.

Here we go:

The commercial starts with a dad reading his daughter a bedtime story. The story happens to be Cinderella, but with an Allstate twist. As the dad proceeds to tell the story, the daughter adds her own, funny details to the story.

She adds that Cinderella not only lives with her stepmother and two stepsisters, but she has a pet pony in the house, as well. If you think about it though, the pony is probably more realistic than having talking mice as pets.

The story goes on as normal, until Cinderella flees the ball before the stroke of midnight.

As the driver drives away from the castle with Cinderella in the carriage, he gets into an accident. Cinderella’s fairy godmother then reappears and whips out her cellphone to call her Allstate agent.

The Allstate agent has the broken carriage (this thing is in pieces) towed away, and Cinderella’s “rental carriage reimbursement” provides her with a new carriage to get home. But before she can get in her “rental carriage” the prince catches up to her with her missing shoe, and they live happily ever after.

Point of Commercial

I wasn’t really sure what the point of this Allstate Cinderella commercial was when I first watched it, besides being cute. But after thinking about it, I am wondering if Allstate isn’t trying to reach out to the younger ones that don’t quite have their driver’s licenses yet.

With throwing in the rental coverage into the story of Cinderella, you are teaching those that don’t know much about insurance how rental reimbursement work. So when they do start to drive, they will know about the coverage and think about putting it on their vehicle.

What They Want You to Do

Allstate wants you to laugh and they do a good job in getting that done. You would have to be made of stone not to find at least one thing funny about this commercial.

It is also a cute commercial for Allstate. Both the cuteness and the laughter create positive feelings in your head for Allstate, leading to a higher opinion of the insurance company.

My Opinion

This is a really cute commercial, and I know that this wasn’t meant as a mainstream type commercial, but kudos to Allstate for getting creative. Also, a big thank you for not telling us the amount of money Cinderella saved by going with Allstate, instead of another cut-rate carriage insurance.

Giving this Allstate Cinderella commercial two thumbs up.

The 2012 Kia Sportage is a crossover worth taking a look at for a good insurance premium.

The 2012 Kia Sportage is a crossover with a pretty premium.

The 2012 Kia Sportage stands its own ground when you compare it to other crossovers on the market today. It has the same sporty look as other crossovers, but it has been rated as one of the safer crossovers to drive. Add that to the low starting price of $19,000, and the small insurance premium just becomes the icing on the cake.

2012 Kia Sportage IIHS Ratings

The 2012 Kia Sportage is a “Top Safety Pick” for the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS). It rated as good in all testing categories (front crash, side impact, roof strength, and rear crash/head restraints) with the IIHS; which is a huge improvement over the last 10 years of testing for the Sportage. In the past, the Sportage struggled with moderate, average, and even poor ratings in some of its testing.

Coming back strong with good ratings in all categories with this new design, and being rated as a “Top Safety Pick”, shows that KIA is taking its poor ratings from the past seriously.

Insurance for the 2012 Kia Sportage

The insurance on the 2012 Kia Sportage is going to be something that no one is going to squawk at. It was rated as the 13th least expensive vehicle to insure. Now, this isn’t just the one of the least expensive crossovers to insure, this means out of all the vehicles that are sold across the country, only 12 other vehicles have a cheaper insurance premium than the 2012 Kia Sportage.

In terms of crossovers, there are only two that are cheaper to insure than the 2012 Kia Sportage. The cheapest being the Jeep Compass and the next cheapest being the Dodge Journey.

This lower insurance premium makes sense. The Sportage has been on the market for at least 10 years, giving it a good supply of aftermarket parts.

It is also not an expensive vehicle at all. Compared to other crossovers being sold today, the Kia Sportage carries one of the lowest price tags. The cheaper vehicle price means that the parts will also be cheaper for insurance companies to buy in the event of an accident; decreasing the price of the comprehensive and collision coverage.

In terms of your medical coverage, with the vehicle being a “Top Safety Pick”, you are looking at a lower premium because of the decreased likelihood of high or any medical bills from an accident.

2012 Kia Sportage Recalls

There have been no recalls for the 2012 Kia Sportage.