@ Team Cremisi

[punkUser]

I don't disagree with most of what you wrote Honkey, particularly as I stated I agree that liability insurance should basically be required for drivers. Here in BC, Canada that insurance is regulated/run by the province since you get into a weird situation if you require insurance but do not regulate the prices (see Ontario).

#5- Insurance companies actually LOSE money most of the time on any line besides auto iand life insurance. The onyl way they make money is through wise investing.

Sure, but that's actually irrelevant to the customer who is weighing not only the "pay in, get out" but the same opportunity cost of what to do with the capital.

Also... the custoemr likes to take on a direct approach of "this is what I paid in this is what they paid out" but that is ignoring the government bureaucracy, and all the people that need to be employed to make an insurance company properly run. A typical profitable customer is actually around the 60% range, meaning that if we pay out more than 60% of their premiums they have paid in, we have lost money, and I would say over half if not more of the customers In our agency are unprofitable.

Fine, but again, irrelevant to the customer. He's not making the claim that he could run an insurance company more efficiently but rather just considering whether - on average - it is cheaper cover the replacement/repair cost out of pocket if something should happen or get insurance. And as I stated - on average it is cheaper to pay yourself. This is a pretty simple concept... insurance companies do not create money (or rather, in any way that they do such as investment, individuals can do it too). So yeah, the place where you need insurance is in situations where you could not afford to pay if something where to happen. i.e. liabilities, cars, houses, medical, etc.

you pay some money to make sure everything you worked for and have earned doesn't slip away because of one mistake, or an unavoidable event.

Right, precisely. And I fully agree that in situations like driving people are in far less control of outcomes than they think they are. But conversely, if I can afford to cover the cost of an event (say my toaster breaks... I can buy a new one) then insurance is not financially prudent.

I don't think I'm fundamentally disagreeing with anything you're saying, just pointing out that insurance only makes sense on relatively large value items/situations since it is those that you want to amortize the risk across large numbers of people. That's what insurance does after all.

[Honkey]

You seem to get it. However..... The cost of an insurance company needs to run does matter to the customer. Insurance companies are required to carry cash reserves. Also... cut rate insurance companies are more likely to be understaffed, meaning longer claim times, short cuts on claims payouts, and a huge backlog of work coupled with horrible service and bad customer wait times. The last thing a person who lost their house in a fire wants to deal with is waiting in a 25 minute call cue and an adjustor (the person who writes claims checks) to take 2 weeks to get out there and deny a bunch of the claim.

And no I am not a salesman. I am an advisor. Would you call an attorney a salesman? would you call A doctor a salesman? would you call a police officer a salesman? each one of them also causes you to part with your resources. I educate people on their decisions... if they opt for state minimums or no insurance I leave it at that. I am actually a resource and dependable person my clients can rely on.... A salesman would be a guy at a car lot trying to convince you to pick up a car, or selling magzine subscriptions door to door. Wheras I advise people on serious situations that could impact their life, financial security, and whatnot. They can take it or leave it, and thats only 15% of my job. The rest is helping my existing customers with their problems, reviewing their situations, and believe it or not... a lot of times my "reccomendations" include them dropping coverage, or paying less. That isnt a very good sales tactic.

[punkUser]

However..... The cost of an insurance company needs to run does matter to the customer.

It does once you've determined that you need insurance and are comparing the companies. But it doesn't need to factor into the decision on whether or not you need insurance, which is simply a function of whether you can afford to pay out of pocket for whatever is being insured. That was my only point.

[NewMutator]

1/10 of the workforce is currently in sales. The other 9/10 are what can be considered "non-sales selling" as per Dan Pink's suggested name. All the professions you listed fall under that heading, and, in fact, we all do much of the time even while not working.

EDIT: The Internet and smartphones render the used car salesmen stereotype obsolete. Just because you're forced to be more honest while trying to convince people to part with resources (time, money, attention, etc.) doesn't make you any less a salesman.

[Dantski]

Didn't our team insist on remaking the game the second paris turned up week 1?

[Honkey]

I would agree with your assesment. .Sales is a by product of the work I do, The better job I do, the more customers want me as their advisor. And the technical definition of sales is a one time transaction aka a car. Getting a new customer in the door can be difficult, but I really need to work to keep them happy, which is a majority of my job. In the 80's the only thing insurance guys did was sell it, they need much more diverse people now, which is why they are having a serious problem finding qualified people that can deal with the stress.... as I said.... it takes a lot more than money to keep you in this job, with it on my resume alone i could likely get a paid pure sales position that would be similar to what I make now with far less stress... however I wouldnt be helping anyone but myself.

[NewMutator]

The old days are over. Working jobs with clear job descriptions where you perform a repetitive task that requires little or no cognitive ability, those days are done. Increasingly, employees need to perform a variety of tasks in response to their work environment, and utilize problem solving to accomplish whatever they are trying to get done. So in a way, companies are crowdsourcing creative solutions without compensating for them; paying people to be creative doesn't work (money is an unreliable motivator when it comes to creativity) but if you expect it as part of the job you can get it for free. Problem is, people would much prefer to put that creativity toward goals they value and find significant. We see that on Wikipedia, on Quora, with opensource software. Many of Google's ventures are the result of simply allowing their employees to work on whatever they want 20% of the time (though I've since heard they've suspended this practice, which doesn't bode well for their future in innovation). This ties in with whatever Asmo's railing on about. You can solicit temporary compliance and get mediocre results, or you can enable people to manifest real value in the world. Thing is, companies today are harnessing that creativity because they're invested in the narrative that people are lucky to be getting jobs at all. All this can be mitigated, however, not by selling some utopian dream, as you seem to think I'm about (where that came from, I may never know) but through something as simple as an unconditional guaranteed income program. The labor market can't compete with automation, and if companies didn't have to pay people, don't kid yourself, they wouldn't.

[par73]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2z4YSqcmus[/youtube]

[Honkey]

I agree with you to an extent NM. The days of "canning factories" etc are for the most part being phased out. However, American Industry is actually reversing course a little bit as they face a couple of factors. A good friend of mine who is an engineer stated that what has happened is a lot of outsourced labor is actually being brought back because the employees in many less educated countries simply do not have the cognitive ability to problem solve. An example he used was if you are building a part a machine he is building he is going to ask for it to meet certain parameters. The problem with outsourced labor right now is that the workers in those countries have no training beyond the steps they are required to complete a repetitive task. Couple that with Fuel costs, freight costs (cannister rental, ship space etc) and the bribes required to ensure timely shipping and the ability to operate and they realized they could pay 2 american workers LESS than 10 chinese workers doing the same task and it was done better. Its quite interesting how this shift is starting to occur. I would expect a small resurgence of industry in America. It really boils down to skilled labor and service positions. People need things done right, and we live in an
economy that values the pooling of knowledge aka I have an accountant, an attorney, and several other insurance folks I deal with to help me and my customers solve problems we may have. It is definetly quite interesting how this dynamic is playing out. Unfortunately our education system is absolutely dismal, university has turned to for profit, and there is an overwhelming dumbing down of the next generation due to google etc. There are actually studies that indicate search engines are distorting short term memory ability. That is the true paradox in this shift. as our society is dumbing down, it requires much more problem solving, networking, and critical thinking than ever before. The days of taking the job at the assembly line the day after high school graduation and working at that place for 50 years are over, should be interesting to see it play out. I have a feeling what is going to happen is there will be a wider income, and higher unemployment as we move forward as the demand for skilled people will increase and the demand for unskilled or uneducated decreases. We already seeing it at my age (im 28) and I am not part of the pure internet generation like my little brother (20) is. Idiocracy is not looking as fictional.

[NewMutator]

I don't really believe the Internet makes you stupid. That seems like an awfully conservative claim to make for the nostalgia of the good ol' days. I don't really think we should return to the days of high employment either. All it means, that I can see, are lower and lower wages for more and more intricate and demanding work as American workers compete globally. The issue, for me, is that core to our society is what is known as the Puritan (or Weber's Protestant) work ethic. Basically, even in secular society, industry, "looking busy" holds more value than reflection or other introverted qualities. This stems from the idea that spiritual grace is reflected in one's actions on earth, namely, one's approach toward labor and human sacrifice. That's why we all appear to accept that suffering is a necessary component of earning the privilege to exist. People are too often concerned with their image, their appearance to others, to really wrestle with what and who they truly are. That's a natural corollary of philosophical materialism which really struggles to explain the "problem" of consciousness.

[grim]

I didn't host MWC because I have like 15 minutes of alone time per day on the computer these days.

Cool, apparently I got 4 new private messages!

[grim]

Too bad they were all gibberish. Bleh.

[par73]

grim ~I thought arz wanted to talk to me