This ad ran in the paper last week from the Insurance Bureau of Canada. It talks of the 10th anniversary of the ice storm, and the recovery efforts that brought everyone together. It also notes how proud the insurance industry is of the “vital role” it played in that recovery.
It’s along similar lines to this letter from a couple of weeks ago, talking about the heroic insurance adjusters who processed hundreds of thousands of claims in the weeks that followed.
OK sure, it was a lot of work and I’m sure those insurance people had to work overtime. And unlike airline pilots or police officers, insurance adjusters rarely have moments of great triumph in their profession. But this ad makes them out to be heroes, just for processing some forms and cutting some cheques.
Had the insurance companies gone out of their way, above and beyond in compensating policy holders, I might have let them shamelessly suck in the pats on the back. But they didn’t. Instead, they warned people without power not to leave their homes unless they were forced to by the government, saying they wouldn’t be compensated for additional living expenses. A class-action lawsuit is still being fought to get policy holders compensated.
Perhaps instead of spending so much money on advertising masturbation they could settle the lawsuit and give their clients the money they’re owed.
The woman in that photo, the same photo used on the cover of the book about the 1998 ice storm, is Katja Macleod Kessin, a Montreal artist who died in 2006. It shows her walking down Oxford Street in NDG, where she lived at the time. Katja never gave permission for her image to be used (and, granted, it’s not the most recognizable portrait).