Sometimes commercials stretch the truth. Other times they just outright ignore any possibility of even grazing the surface of something that resembles the truth.

I saw one tonight that was so amazingly the latter it drove me to grimace, pour a stiff drink, and get out my laptop.

There are plenty of ridiculously incorrect insurance commercials and many of them that state total bologna as fact. But this commercial is noteworthy because it makes possibly the most bogus claim I’ve ever heard in a way that seems so totally possible.

In their commercial, the insurance company states that if you have your insurance with them you can completely take care of a claim in one simple phone call.

One call and your car is fixed, your injuries are resolved, and your life is back to new. Man, it would be great, almost like a fluffy car accident pillow. But the reality is that there is absolutely no way this could ever happen, and in the real world, you wouldn’t want it to.

Claims are a series of hurdles.

The simplest ones have a few. Like a 40-yard dash but with hurdles. The more complicated claims are like a 1600 meter race. Even a relay race. You have to be patient, jump over hurdles as they arise and pass the baton from time to time.

The funny thing is that with big companies you’ve got to figure out these hurdles on your own. So maybe that commercial is saying you make one phone call and then if you’re ok with nothing else happening that can be it.

I would like to see even one example of a claim that truly took only one phone call.

I’ve tried to imagine this myself. Let’s take the simplest auto claim in the world with no injuries as an example. So you call the claim in to the company and that’s your only call.

• How do you know who will be in touch about fixing the damage?
• Will they bring the collision center to your home and fix your car while you were sleeping?
• How will you get around while your car is being fixed?
• Maybe they plan to bring a rental car to your house but how will you know when?

The fact is they are selling you the idea that there’s nothing to it. That an insurance claim is like ordering fast food. IN> OUT> DONE.

The beauty for them is that by selling us lollipops and fuzzy kittens they dodge the thing that all of us really need. Someone to walk us through the claim. To take and make as many phone calls as necessary. To thanklessly wait on hold making sure that everything gets back to normal as smoothly as possible. To push the Big Insurance companies of the world into being willing to make more than one phone call.

Ah marketing, the ability to take the thing that the company really wants most and project it as the thing you and I really want most. It would be nice if the tragedies and scary moments in our lives could magically disappear in one phone call, but they can’t.

Solutions to real problems take time and human effort. If you want your insurance from someone willing to offer that, please let us know.

Want to learn the basics of how an auto claim should work?

Here’s a video from our Make Insurance Simple online resource

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Our experts can break it all down for you.