The subject came up about folks knocking on doors, and I thought of the door to door salesman. Not many of them (if any) anymore. We don’t seem to have the time to see a vacuum cleaner demonstration or hear of a ‘new’ life insurance policy. I remember times my mama took the time to talk to a salesman, even offer him coffee.
Our family like most families of the 40-50's era had what was called nickel and dime insurance policies. The insurance man actually came around weekly to collect the thirty cents, on three policies. They hung behind the living room door and most of the time the three dimes (or what weekly amt was req) was in the envelope the little record was kept in. The Ins man initialed each one every week.
Sherry and I still have the ‘paid up policies’ for $250 put back for burial or whatever would be needed at death. Funny $250 would bury a person then. (But then a new Chevrolet was $1900)
Our auto Ins has been going up a little every year and I thought it was time to compare amounts. Allstate must have been ‘reading our mail’ because I received an e-mail offering a quote on auto ins. So I did.
The quotes looked good. Sherry wanted to know if we had to go to the insurance office. I hadn’t even looked at an address. It was down near Miami, SURELY NOT!
No that would not be necessary…etc. I then took time to compare the policies. The reason we would save $300 a year was LESS coverage. If they added the coverage we have, the cost was nearly the same. So I e-mailed Allstate and said thanks for your time, but we will stick with State Farm for the present.
Does anyone go to offices anymore? We had to pull teeth (just about) to find out where we could pay our utilities, here and back in NC.
Son Mark now drives for UBER and has NEVER even talked to anyone from UBER, even over the phone. Everything was handled by text or e-mail. That is hard for an OLD MAN like me to wrap my mind around.
Then again, there are a lot of things it is hard to wrap my mind around at this time of my life.
Nite Shipslog
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7 comments:
I know, right?!? :)
We loved our insurance agent (Farmers), but well-meaning friends kept suggesting the Hartford (through AARP). Thank goodness Tom did all the leg work on the phone I've come to dislike. Turns out, we're saving over $200 every month -- for more coverage!
PS - Door-to-door salespeople still ignore our "No soliciting" sign on the door. The thought of actually inviting someone inside? Oh no, no, noooo!
We bundle all our insurance needs through the auto club. We got "sticker shock" when our car insurance got renewed in February. It doubled in price but then we had to remember we had 2 new vehicles. I wanted to cut back on our coverage but saved some here and there with other discounts and kept the full coverage we had since hubby drives 50 miles to and from work on a daily basis and is on fairly tough roads. To be "under insured" during those conditions (but still above the state's minimum) didn't make sense in the long run. When his commute is more manageable, then we'll see about changing coverage.
We do have a no soliciting sign up. It has generally worked well. Even the people that come to pass out flyers respect it (and those flyers I really want to see because sometimes they have discounts for services or products). One person did ring the doorbell a few weeks back. I was literally 5 feet away from them on the other side with the blinds cracked enough so I could keep up on the activity of the street but I didn't answer the door (that took restraint, LOL).
Everything is done on line these days. I can imagine something like Uber would take advantage of handling all transactions that way rather than leave a "paper trail."
betty
I well remember the days our insurance agent would come to the door. I even remember when doctors made house calls. Such a changing world. When it came to getting insurance here for my new home, I went with someone local that I could talk to . They bundled my home and car a much cheeper rate than the one I previously had. As with all things I'm learning something new everyday, but the old ways of face to face is definitely preferred.
I used to think ins. co.s were a racket ' until ' we needed our homeowners ins. The rates stayed the same, luckily, and we got the repairs needed taken care of in record time. We're still with them after 30 yrs., the rates only went up once so we are happy, happy. Our truck ins. we've had for the past 10 yrs. We were introduced it thru our new DIL. The rates dropped by half of what we had been paying with twice the coverage. It too, we had to use once and the rates went up a whole dollar. We'll stick with them too. As for door to door salesmen, we do have our supplement senior ins. guy come to the house. It's nice talking face to face, more like trustworthy family. He too was well recommended. Gotta have faith. Most people are good people trying to make a living but I wouldn't let just anyone in my house either. Up north we still have college kids come to the door to sell books, etc, we don't answer the door. Our neighborhood of trustworthy folks have had a few bad experiences. News travels fast in a small community.
Hugs and like mama says, 'Don't talk to strangers.' We collect our first batch of maple sap today...first cook-off will be when the storage tank is 1/4 full. Cannot wait for sap coffee.
I remember Charlie Chip coming door to door and thats about it. Hahaha.
We used to stop in the insurance office in town to pay our car insurance (Nation Wide). Now we pay everything online. It sure has come a log way in just the past 25 years!
From the coast
Lisa
My dad threw a persistant door to door salesman off our front lawn when he refused to take NO for an answer when I was a kid. I will never forget it. We like State Farm too.
We bought our burial plots in the 60's from a door to door salesman and didn't even look at them until years later. No complaints.
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