Insurance and the business of fear—car repairs

By Steve Otto

All we have to do is look at our TVs today to see what is being sold to us, in the name of crisis. For example—Car Shield, Endurance, Carchex and many other types of insurance to prevent us from having expensive car repairs. Until recently, when our cars broke down we came up with funds to fix them. But not now. We buy some kind of insurance, such as Car shield and a number of other car fix insurance companies, by other names. When the warranty wares off, then it is time for car-fix insurance.

There are also insurance systems we can buy to fix your home appliances and the mechanics of our homes, such as American Home Shield. These companies fix such things as a toilet, leaky pipes or bad air conditioners. But what do we really get for our money?

The insurance cost money and most of us won't save $2,000 to $6,000. A few people will come out ahead. The ads on TV don't tell us how much this insurance cost. Apparently all cars and homes don't cost the same. But we can be sure of one thing...These companies are making money. Most people are going to pay way more than the collect when their car breaks down.

There two things to look at here. One is that these things work on the sale of fear. We are shown what can happen if our car beaks down and the money it costs. We are shown home appliances that don't work and create horrible problems. Then we are told "if the car engine light turns on, that's game over." It is designed to scare us over things that might happen to our car or maybe our home.

Then again, insurance does not represent a company that makes things or really fixes anything. They just provide the money to do the fixing. Most people don't have $4,000 laying around to fix their car as the ad says. So they pay more than that amount, in a year's time, with monthly installments. All of this is because the average person can't make more money than they need in a week—when a crisis occurs. So there is a service there, based on fear and the economics based on the average working class person or that person's family and home.

It is like the ads for borrowing money. Whether a personmakes use of CashNetUSA.com loans, with their 240 percent interests or JG Wentworth, where a person with an injury settlement gets back a lump some of their own money—for a fee—of course. It is all about buying large amounts of money, with time payments and interest payments.

A lot of the ads I see in the morning are about insurance. I see more and more ads to call a number to bet back all kinds of medical benefits, including money back on "your" social security payments—for those over 65 who are on Medicare. I'm sure the people behind these ads have found a way to make a shit load of money off of us. Before a person turns 65, on one gives a shit about them. They can drop dead on the street and no cares. But when they reach the age of Medicare—65 years, they are a gold mine to the insurance companies and the medical profession in general. There is money to be mad and that is all the people who run this society care about. So one of the biggest profession today include the business of fear and its profits.