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Vol. 6, Iss. 4
April 12, 2017

Farmers Insurance Hall Of Claims

A Don’t Miss For Those Who Like Interesting Insurance Claims

There’s nothing I like more than Jujubes and an interesting insurance claim. Those who read Coverage Opinions know the latter. My dentist knows the former.

Farmers Insurance also likes interesting insurance claims. You’ve seen their commercials. A dramatization of an unusual claim that Farmers paid, narrated by a nerdy professor, in a tweed jacket, pointing to it as proof that Farmers knows a thing or two because it’s seen a thing or two. Some of the claim depictions involve a dog that turns on a kitchen faucet and transforms the living room into a swimming pool (and then several dogs perform synchronized swimming), ice fishing gone awry when a large pick-up truck breaks through a frozen lake and a dog, in an effort to grab a slice of pizza out of the box on a stove top, turns on a burner, ignites the box and causes a fire.

I think the Farmers guy campaign really gets it. Insurance is perceived as a serious and sophisticated product. Hence, the professor to make that point. But insurance is also perceived as deadly dull (present company excluded of course). Farmers counters this hurdle with humorous reminders that we need to protect ourselves against life’s infinite potential mishaps, many of which could have never been imagined.

The Farmers guy actually has a name. He’s not just the Farmers guy. He is Prof. Nathaniel Burke, portrayed by Academy Award Winning Actor J.K. Simmons, for his role as the relentless music teacher in Whiplash. [My mom has been telling me for a while that I need to see that movie.] Simmons also has numerous television credits, including Oz, Law & Order and The Closer.

It’s interesting how two insurers approach the use of characters to brand their products. Farmers goes the nerd route. GEICO takes the exact opposite approach. The Gecko is the Fonz of insurance.

While some of Farmers’s interesting insurance claims are depicted in its commercials, there are many more where those came from. But you have to know where to look. The Farmers website includes the Farmers Insurance Hall of Claims. Here Farmers describes and illustrates more interesting and bizarre claims -- all just as much so as the ones featured in its commercials. There’s the moose that got tangled up in a back yard swing set, the hot water heater that exploded through a roof and the bear that helped itself to a steak in a Farmers’s customers freezer in his garage.

If you like interesting insurance claims, you will really enjoy visiting the Farmers Hall of Claims. You’ll find it on the Famers homepage.

[By the way, Farmers is not a client of mine and I am not a Farmers customer.]


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