LET’S TALK

Insurance rate hike a rude bit of reality

— I called my automobile insurance agent the other day. The corporate office had sent notice of yet another rate increase.

’Twas only a matter of $6 to $7, but as we know, every penny counts these days. Especially when expenses are the only money-related increases affecting the household.

I already (supposedly) have a couple of discounts with this supplier, but having recently reached the half-century mark in age, I’d hoped there was a chance I could mine yet another one.

After all, the good thing about being this age is that you can start garnering just a few privileges and special treatment, while still having it together enough that people just might complement you occasionally on your looks ... and they just might be doing it out of something other than sympathy or a “be nice to the old gal, maybe she’ll give you money” mindset.

Ahem. Anyway, I pleaded my case with my agent’s representative, telling her that I’d expected my monthly rates to go down, not up, as the Talkmobile aged; announcing that I had just turned 100-divided-by-two; and asking if there were any other discounts for which I would possibly be eligible.

I was out of luck this time. The representative went into her spiel about how rates in the South have gone up due to the even more broke motorists who opt for the “don’t carry auto insurance at all” crap shoot and lose, causing an increase in uninsured-motorist claims. I sat there gloomily speculating that any breaks associated with aging would from now on be decreasing with age.

Yes, auto insurance companies purportedly offer us discounts for being accident-free, driving only so many miles a year and bundling with other insurance policies. Thanks, guys. But since those discounts are being nullified by other economic factors, it’s time to kick things up a notch and offer us new discounts. A few suggested auto insurance discount incentives (some of which are tonguein-check, some that are actually viable):

Driving a normal-looking vehicle. I’m not talking about cars that are not old, wrecked, rusty or have patchwork-quilt paint jobs. I’m talking about cars that don’t cause others to have accidents - therefore driving up premiums - when they see them. Cars that don’t cause others to ask, “Uh, justhow many bumper stickers is that?” “Who the heck provides rainbow-iridescent car paint?” “Why is that truck a giant gum wrapper?” or, best yet, “Whaa-a? Did they do like the guy did in that old Johnny Cash song and steal all those car parts over a 20-year period?”

Bearing the most entertaining vanity license plate. What better way for an auto-insurance company to advertise and garner new customers than offer premium discounts for the top 100 entertaining - ahem, better specify “nonvulgar” - plates in the country? (I suppose TLKMBLE wouldn’t fly.)

Driving a vehicle specifically free of those decals of female silhouettes or those decals of that evil-faced kid urinating on a competing automaker’s logo.

Writing the winning commercial script featuring a Godzillameets-Mothra-esque encounter between Dennis Haysbert, the Mayhem dude, Jerry the hardluck driver and that gecko.

Being 50 and not driving a midlife crisis car.

Not blasting the car radio while driving, especially through residential neighborhoods in the middle of the night.

And last but not least ...

Being a senior citizen ... but driving less than 20 miles under the speed limit.

Premium (or regular) e-mail:

hwilliams@arkansasonline.com

Style, Pages 45 on 03/25/2012

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