Rispon Avenue

I visited my mother this weekend. It’s one of only three times I’ve been able to get out and visit her since she moved into a retirement community back in… March I think.

When my mother moved into this community earlier this year, she sold her home. This has left her with an even nicer nest egg than she already had, which I’m rather grateful for. I like to know that she is set to live in the nice community she moved into for about two decades before there’s any concern about paying for everything.

Whilst visiting her, she told me that she had gotten a stack of forms in the mail asking her to sign off on the renewing of her home insurance and contents insurance separately. She thought this wildly funny, and even applied for a building and contents home insurance quote, though I think she just meant for a home and contents insurance in one package.

Once they got around to processing her quote, they soon realised their folly, that she no longer owned a home, and politely told her she didn’t need their services anymore.

So that was that, and my little old mother seemed to think this the best prank of the year! :lol: She has an endearing sense of humour. She then told me that I must close my eyes and put out my hands. She used to do this when I was a child and she was giving me a surprise. It didn’t matter what magnitude of surprise we are talking about, from my favourite chocolate bar to a SNES game I’d been wanting, it was our routine.

Sitting at her nice little table, with it’s white lace cloth, I put my hands on the table, palms up, with my eyes closed. My SO was grinning like a Cheshire cat at me, so I had a feeling they were in cahoots. My mother placed into my hands three smooth plastic cases, and when I opened them, I found to my utmost surprise that she had bought me three PS3 games from the list I just happen to keep on my computer of games I intend to get in the future. LittleBigPlanet, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, and Metal Gear Solid 4.

I knew then that she must have asked my SO for the titles of some games I wanted, and I was just stoked to get them back and try ‘em out. My mother told me that she had decided to do something nice for me when her insurance renewal came around, because it reminded her of how much I’d helped in selling her house for her and making sure it all worked out nicely.

Ahh, isn’t it nice with the generation gap can so easily be bridged? It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it’s very refreshing.

No Comments »

Then why be so morbid? Yeah, some ads are all laughs, all funny, and some are just trying to suck you in to thinking you could be rich and happy like the people on the screen should you buy this product. Then there are the ads that think, lets scare or depress them into buying our stuff!

Have a guess which sort of product might market itself that way? Certainly wouldn’t be the normal stuff, food, clothing, tech gadgets, sporting equipment… no, all those things either go with just normal selling it’s good points, or ‘you’d be cool like this guy here if you drank/ate …’ kind of stuff. But there are a few that think they need to use scare tactics to get us to fork out our hard earned cash.

Insurance companies do this all the time. Have you ever gotten pamphlets in the mail for insurance companies? A few weeks back I was looking for new term assurance and life cover, or at least a normal life insurance package. I looked into a lot of companies, trying to find the best deal. Some of those companies are rather poor at getting their advertising material out in a timely manner, or seem to just have you on a mailing list once you talk to them.

Basically, these pamphlets show up in your letter box – addressed to you in an envelope – telling you you could die, and don’t leave all the burden of burying you on your family and blah blah blah. I think this sort of advertising is abhorrent, and am thankful I didn’t go with the company who sent me this kind of crappy advertising material. They also show you statistics about injury from work, home or car accidents, which I seem to have miraculously avoided – according to these statistics – with the only exception being that case of whiplash earlier in the year. That was from a fairly minor car accident in a car park, so barely counts as a car accident anyway.

I don’t know, I just hate this kind of thing… it’s like trying to guilt you into buying insurance, or trying to make you really fearful about anything happening so you’ll pay up. Bah I say to those companies, bah!

No Comments »

Will they ever learn? Can they learn? Can it be soon? I hope so… in the mean time I shall continue to complain about them.

Spam got it’s title originally from a sketch by the Monty Python crew, where a cafe menu included spam in every dish. It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to see how this was translated into the title for obnoxious morons sending you reams of crap. For instance, I’ve spoken of my insurance issues lately, that I have had to renew my home insurance… well now of course, I’m getting spam emails about ‘have you decided which carrier to go with for your insurance? We’re the best, blah, blah, blah’

I got news for you, spammers, one, I’m not stupid. A quick Google search reveals that this so called excellent insurance company is non-existent, and two, you’re spamming! Who in the name of all things good is going to base their insurance choice on who sent them an email because they mentioned the word insurance on a blog!? This company didn’t rate a mention anywhere, not any home insurance news sites, nor forums, nor a proper website of your own! Bah!

It’s funny what is spammed about, too. For instance, this is the first time insurance has been spammed to me. I do, however, see a horrific amount of comments left on my blog, spamming the sale of non-over the counter drugs, and viagra. Lately my spam has taken a turn for the worse, and it’s become about geriatric pornography. I so wish that was a joke, I really, really do. But it’s not. My blog gets around two spam comments each day, and lately they have become walls of text, dotted with disturbing references and hyperlinks. Wherever you are, spammers, I hope a can of spam miraculously hits you in the head for putting so much spam on my blog!

No Comments »

It’s probably a yay, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to spend the time pouring over deals to find the right one.

This is something that most of us should have, especially later in life or if we partake in any extreme sports, neither of which apply to me. I’ve tried looking at life insurance news sites, or looking at life insurance blog sites, but I just can’t get interested. I think I would have to get one of those broker companies that search out life insurance policies that best suit you.

I just find the whole topic somewhat depressing, and I’d rather not invest a heck of a lot of time into delving into it. That’s why I’d rather have the issue taken care of for me; I don’t mind paying for it, because I see good sense in it, like with any insurance, but I don’t want to spend valuable time in going through all the different options.

Thinking on this has made me rather philosophical. I wonder who the first person was who came up with the idea of someone paying them a monthly sum, on the off chance that they would find themselves in trouble with their health, or even dying. Hmmm, I’m going to look that up. There you go, insurance pretty much came about when human society did. Though insurance the way we know it today really started around 1750BC by the Babylonians, where a caravanner who took out a loan to fund a shipment would pay an extra fee which meant that if the shipment was lost for whatever reason, the caravanner wouldn’t have to pay back any of the loan. That little five minute look over the history of insurance was so much more interesting than anything I read regarding taking out insurance. Isn’t that funny?

It’s still something under consideration. I’m pretty sure in the short term that I will extend my healthcare insurance to cover life insurance, but as I said, I will be having someone else do the work to find the appropriate deal for me.

No Comments »