Insurance Industry Can’t Escape Pop Culture Bashing
In case you thought insurance industry bashing in pop culture was a relatively recent phenomenon after reading my Dec. 8 entry about the negative image of evil carriers perpetuated in the new TNT drama “Leverage,” think again! Apparently, such knee-jerk slams go all the way back to the 1950s, and not even a sci-fi classic like “The Day The Earth Stood Still” could resist the temptation to take a cheap shot at this much-maligned business.
I watched the original movie (and loved it, by the way!) to refresh my memory before seeing the remake later this week. If you recall, it’s about a “spaceman,” as he’s called, and his killer robot coming to Earth in a flying saucer to warn us not to spread our nuclear wars beyond our atmosphere, or face certain destruction by planets that are vastly superior–scientifically and morally.
Of course, everyone on Earth is terrified of the spaceman, who gets shot as he holds up a harmless gift for our president, then is tracked down and killed by a military posse later on (only to be brought back to life by his amazingly advanced technology).
In between, he blends in with the crowd in Washington, D.C., to take the mood and pulse of the civilian population–coming across as a bit odd, but harmless. He even befriends a young boy and his widowed mom, who ends up saving his life by fetching the robot to rescue him.
However, the woman’s clean-cut boyfriend betrays the spaceman’s identity and turns him into the military, bragging about how his tip is going to make him the biggest man in America, and certainly will lead to a promotion at his firm.
What does this rotten snitch do for a living? Of course! He’s an INSURANCE SALESMAN! You just KNOW you can’t trust those guys, right??? (Of course, the movie never specifies whether this despicable stool pigeon sells life or property-casualty insurance–a point of great distinction within the insurance world to this day, but of no consequence to the overwhelmingly majority of Americans, who feel if they’ve one insurance salesman, they’ve seen them all!)
Meanwhile, here’s a disturbing postscript to my “Leverage” blog of Dec. 8.
If you recall, the program is about a former insurance fraud investigator whose carrier denies a claim for medical treatment that might have saved his dying son’s life. He goes on to form a group of thieves among those he once tracked down, as part of a modern Robin Hood story to steal from bad guys and help those they victimize. If they screw his former insurer in the process, so much the better!
In the Dec. 16 episode, we meet the character who replaced the star as his former insurer’s lead investigator. The guy, of course, is a sleazy jerk–without pity or a sense of decency.
In one scene, the star pleads with his replacement to lay off his client, who he insists is innocent of arson. The investigator sneers at our white knight, before spitting out these immortal words that sums up what far too many feel about the insurance industry’s standard operating philosophy:
“We’re insurance men,” he says. “We don’t care who’s guilty or who’s innocent–only who pays.”
How nice. No wonder the public thinks everyone in this business is crooked or insensitive.
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If you think that’s bad, remember the John Grisham book turned into a movie, “Rainmaker”?
I read the book and also saw the movie, and honestly found myself laughing through most of it. It was by far the most cliched portrayal of the evil insurer that I’ve ever seen.
SAM RESPONDS:
Wow, I do remember that film! Again, it was about a lawsuit over denial of a medical claim as “experimental,” and the policyholder died, I believe, which is the same premise as the “Leverage” TV show.
The problem is that there is just enough controversial claim denials of just this sort out of the millions filed to fuel the stereotype of the evil insurer putting profit ahead of an insured’s life.
I wish it wasn’t true, but most claims are settled for what the insurance company thinks is the least they can pay to avoid court or complaints to insurance department.
As an industry, we do nothing or close to it to explain how important what we do is.
The property-casualty business actually has helped millions to continue on with their lives after personal disasters.
On the lighter side of things, I loved the portrayal of the cliched life insurance salesman from “Groundhog Day.” Every day when Bill Murray’s character wakes up to relive the same day again, he runs into his “old friend” from high school who tries to pitch him on buying life coverage.
“Along Came Polly” was another good one. Ben Stiller plays a life insurance underwriter who also happens to be completely petrified of all forms of risky activity/exposure to germs. The scene with Alec Baldwin in the bathroom where he keeps touching Ben Stiller is hilarious.
Being in the industry, it is always interesting to see how we are perceived by everyone else.
SAM RESPONDS:
Of course, the most infamous film reference to an insurance agent came in one of Woody Allen’s old classics, “Take The Money and Run,” in which a sadistic prison warden punishes Allen by locking him in solitary confinement with an insurance salesman!
Doesn’t Jack Lemmon work for an insurance company in “The Apartment”?
SAM RESPONDS:
You are correct, sir! The syopsis in IMBd (the Insurance Movie Database) about this 1960 film describes Lemmon’s character as “a struggling clerk in a huge New York insurance company” and as an “insurance statistician.”
What’s more, “he’s discovered a quick way to climb the corporate ladder–by lending out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses.”
Another lovely insurance role model!
How about “The Incredibles,” where the main character’s soul-sucking job is…an insurance adjuster!
SAM RESPONDS:
Indeed! It’s even worse, since apparently the lead character was driven out of a life of crime-fighting by lawsuits filed by those Mr. Incredible saved! (Damn those greedy plaintiff lawyers! LOL!)
Get a load of the plot summary for this 2004 animated film posted on IMDb, the Internet Movie Database:
“Mr. Incredible is a superhero; or he used to be, until a surge of lawsuits against superheroes submitted by the people they’ve saved forced the government to hide them in witness protection programs so they could lead normal, anonymous lives.”
“Now known exclusively by his secret identity, Bob Parr…he works as an insurance claims specialist, and he’s fed up with his pushy boss and his immoral profession…”
“Immoral” profession, huh? That is outrageous!
I think it’s time that we had an insurance superhero, don’t you??? A super-claims adjuster, who can swoop into disaster zones to save the lives, homes and businesses of policyholders would be a good place to start, wouldn’t you think???