Insurance Marketing has you covered.
Marketing insurance is nothing new, however there is a fairly new entry that caught my eye. I have seen Flo from progressive, the GEICO Caveman, the Gecko, and the recent addition of R. Lee Ermey (The drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket).
There is the AllState commercials with Dennis Haysbert; Like a good neighbor and more recently, Dean Winter and the magically appearing agent.
I found this spot from Liberty Mutual to be nice in terms of the message.
But one campaign that has a very different take is the one from 21st Century Auto Insurance. Their approach is that all insurance companies are basically the same so why pay more for the same coverage. This is either a BOLD move on their part or just a tactic to show that all insurance is as vanilla as we make it out to be. Their tag line is “The same great coverage for less.” Their ads show two vehicles with the same damage and both are repaired from the “Covered” damage, but with 21st Century Auto, the coverage costs less. Even the spokesman is plain and minimal. He doesn’t say a word. The message is all about the savings rather than a flashy, or edgy attention grabbing spot. Time will tell if this approach will work for the A+ rated, Farmers owned company. The result may be as bland as the commercial is my prediction.
Speaking of Farmers Insurance, I can’t leave them out of this. They have the Farmers University campaign which lacks to have any call to action?
Do we care that the insurance agents have a University? No! All insurance companies are state regulated and every agent needs to go through continuous training to maintain their license, so how does this campaign put Farmers ahead of anyone else in my mind? They even tried to tie in the Farmers University with the new X-Men First Class motion picture but again failed to tie in the reason to choose Farmers Insurance over another company.
Even the recent State Farm Insurance company ad tie in with Pixar’s Cars 2, was able tie in the message with buying auto insurance.
So as a matter of Boldness versus Blandness, I think we see who is who. When it comes to Insurance, they may deliver basically the same service but the first lesson in business is never focus solely on offering the lowest price.It leaves the sales force with nothing else to attract customers and nothing to prevent customers from leaving when someone eventually beats your low price.
21st is a big scam. They are trying to be the low cost leader and claim to be the same great coverage… but the service stinks. Getting a claim for a chipped windshield was like pulling teeth.
I went online to cheapest insurance.com just to get quotes and they (21st Century) blew up my phone until I called back to tell them to stop calling and they said they weren’t calling. They said it was some other company, but the phone number went to 21st Century…
Very deceptive. I don’t trust any company that operates like that.
I first would like to state that I am an employee of 21st Century Insurance and work as a Service Advocate, but am not speaking on behalf of the company, nor has the company asked me to read/reply to reviews; rather I am shocked at the amount of dissatisfied customers I see here, and because I care I want to educate
and there is LOTS that you folks can do in your own defense, I am not kidding when I tell you that 21st Century Insurance REALLY does care! I care too, you all are my livelihood and put food on my table, as a company we recognize that, seriously! I would like to keep things entirely human with everyone, because much to your defense i notice that the majority of the complaints posted here are not problems with just 21st Century, but problems with the Insurance Industry in general. My best advice to everyone, regardless of who you are insured by, insurance is a product that works 2 ways; it insures the customer who buys it at the same time ensuring a balanced income for the insurer who sells it. As such, in cases where we must pay for a company that is looking out for itself, it is entirely in your(the customers) benefit to do your homework on what insurance is, how it works, what the law of large numbers is, and use that knowledge to then shop for the ==company== that is right for you, rather than the ==rate== that is right for you. All these commercials get us too focused on how much our monthly bill is, and not about coverage. 21st includes “Security Advantage” automatically with every policy, which is the same thing as AAA; an awesome service yes, but also a double edge sword because should your “tier” be such that you land with an underwriting company (again this is all ins. companies) who has more claims than others, then up goes the premium. The company does not jack up premiums in a twisted attempt(I know its hard to believe, really I do) to squeeze you dry, doing such with no regard to your length of time with us, we KNOW your not dispensable! Perhaps you call up and get a quote, and your rep failed to tell you that unless we have the exact VIN of your vehicle, if there’s been an accident(regardless of fault) within the last 3-5 years, and a few other things, then the premium will go up. That’s why its important to be brutally honest with your sales guy when you start the policy, otherwise Underwriting will play detective, and you end up feeling screwed just because you didn’t tell us something, and we didn’t ask enough questions. If someone has access to your keys, DON’T tell us unless you want them added to the policy as a driver, we have to by law. If your nanny drives the car every wed., DON’T tell us, or she will be added. If you get a moving violation, we will find out at renewal, no need to tell us. Most important, you can ALWAYS call to review: vehicle use, vehicle mileage, check to see if any accidents have fallen off/when, check to see who is listed as operators and if anyone you don’t want then get us that piece of paper that says we can take em off the policy! If you drive your car 3 days a week less than 7500 a year its pleasure use not work use, even if you drive it to work, that saves money. Check out discounts, mature driver, defensive driving courses online can save you big time. GET ON AUTO PAY, i know some people say don’t do it, but just MAKE SURE you have the money in the account when its supposed to be there. If your not on auto pay, you are wasting 100 bucks a year in service fees. Go paperless, you’ll save money, yes embrace the internet if you value a buck. Hmm what else….pay your bill on time! the billing system just automatically cancels you if you don’t, after day 1 your in cancellation billing” but your not canceled, after 6 days your canceled. If you happen to get canceled, non renewal, you can STILL be reinstated, unless underwriting canceled you(in which case there was a very good reason for it, because it doesn’t happen all the time), just ask and we can reinstate with or without a lapse. You don’t want a lapse, it makes your premium higher, a lapse is the time between coverage, it has to do with tier-ing, and that decides which UW (underwriting) company your gonna end up with and that will really decide your premium. Thats it in a nutshell. Be patient, do some research, no were not perfect, but dammit were trying 
and although our premiums are sometimes a little higher, all insurance coverage is NOT the same. OH and if you live in CA,NJ,OK,FL, or MA your rates are through the roof, im sorry but that’s more of a political issue that I wont touch on atm. Anyways i hope I was of some help to you all, call your insurance companies and give em hell(but be nice we are humans) and make sure your rep is working to get your premium lowered or your questions answered!