“and the days dwindle down to a precious few…”
Frank Sinatra
It seems to become more apparent every time I open a statement from an insurance company, that they are blatantly becoming more fearless about raising their consumer rates, often from one statement to the next. In the not too distant past insurance companies would employ surreptitious and covert techniques in raising their rates, to the point we almost had to compare statements to even detect their ploy. They are still fluidly sleek and shark-like in their approach, but now they are completely and overtly informing us of the fact they are, once again, going to be dipping their hands into our wallets (or at least my insurance carrier is).
For example, I received a birthday card from my insurer a few days before my last birthday, which I thought was a nice touch. Their card had a nice, genteel look to it as had all the others I had received over the years…only this card was a little different. Inside was a poem instead of the expected generic greeting that I had come to envisage from my insurance carrier.
It goes as follows:
Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you. I hope it’s great one, you know that I do.
Now that I have that out of the way, I’m raising your rates, effective today.
I’ve done you a service, (I’m sure you won’t mind) By installing a siphon from your bank to mine.
Hard monthly payments and nasty old cash. Won’t worry you now, there’s no time for that.
You’re no longer young, life’s passing you by. So stop by and thank me, before you die.
All at once I was sunned, mortified and flabbergasted, by their audacity and boldness, then I sat back and slowly started to realize that they are no different than most any other company that I deal with today. I suppose, what really bothers me about this whole episode, is that they are forcing me to acknowledge the reality that I am getting older. If they hadn’t been so bloody audacious about it all, I possibly could have gone on several more years pretending that death’s winged chariot is not breezing past my front window on a slowly increasing schedule, and that I am still a young, virile, strong twenty-something year old, instead of the old geezer I am swiftly becoming.
It was a nice card though, I have to say.
1998, newspaper article written under the pseudonym Richard Corey
jimbussell 