Up Yours, Admiral Insurance!
Posted by keith on February 23rd, 2009
There’s a great Monty Python sketch centred around an actor called Arthur Jackson, who happens to have two sheds. The interviewer siezes upon this fact and constantly refers to him as Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson, much to the chagrin of poor “Two Sheds” who is desperate to talk about his acting work rather than the size and content of his sheds. I have three sheds and, up until my insurance expires in a couple of weeks time, have car insurance with a large company called Admiral.
Admiral “Two Cars” Insurance.
At this point I must place a short disclaimer: Yes, we do have car, the same one we’ve had for 8 years, which we originally bought before our views on environmental damage hardened. It is driven about once every week or two, so we have to insure it. It’s very likely that we’ll be getting rid of it soon, because it does feel hypocritical having one and, as I say, it’s hardly ever used. Still, it gives me a chance to talk about this…
Admiral are running a series of television adverts in the UK espousing the availability of a special deal for households with more than one car; basically you can insure the second (and presumably third, fourth, fifth etc.) for less than the first one:
Single, married or sharing a house – you can save with MultiCar as long as the cars are registered at that address. Even someone with two or more cars is eligible for great discounts with Admiral MultiCar.
This same stance is repeated on the main page of their web site — actually it virtually is the main page of their web site. Now, car insurance is insurance for cars; but this is quite clearly an endorsement of those very many households who, in their flawed wisdom, have decided that they have to have two or more cars in order to live their lives. And to think, I feel bad about having one car!
For that, and that alone, I’m transferring our insurance to a company that at least makes a decent effort to get people out of their cars rather than living their lives enclosed in polluting metal boxes. If I were slightly less hard-line then I would probably even tell you their name…