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Dumb Story - Car Insurance

Over the course of my insurance career, a few years involved helping people with their auto insurance. I cut my teeth on life and health insurance, so selling auto coverage involved obtaining a Property and Casualty license. I passed the exam, as well as a kidney stone, on the same day. Both were extremely painful.

I was used to working a specific market, mostly B2B sales. Needless to say, my learning curve was different when all of a sudden I was dealing with the general public. It was like retail all over again. And the reason I got out of retail was because I wanted a career where I could choose who my customers would be. 

Generally speaking, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. I started out as a "staff member" in a well-known large insurance office. The clients were pretty good and I was supposed to call the current book of business to discuss life and health insurance, but it didn't work out. I was offered a job at a "substandard" auto insurance company, with better pay and benefits.

One thing I learned right away was the definition of "substandard". The clientele was comprised mostly people who had bad driving records and/or credit histories, I began to think of them as the "cream of the crap". They weren't especially fond of me either.

I grew up in the south and thought I had heard most malapropisms before, but nothing like this. People would ask when their policies would "collapse". They also would call to get a "quota" for "reliability" coverage. One even asked if we offered "any of that university life" insurance.

And the way they butchered up the names of their vehicles was priceless. Apparently Chrysler made a "Seabreeze" and one lady owned an "Escalator". I stole the Mitch Hedberg line and asked her if it turned into stairs when it broke down. One lady got upset when I couldn't find a "Skratus" in the system (I could, I just didn't want to). And I'm still not sure what a "Corosica" is or who makes it.

Like Frasier Crane once said, "If you can't make fun of other people, who can you make fun of?"

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