GEICO
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| GEICO Logo, featuring the GEICO Gecko | |
| Company type | Private (owned by Berkshire Hathaway) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Finance and Insurance |
| Founded | 1936, Washington, D.C. |
| Headquarters | Chevy Chase, Maryland |
Key people | Olza M. "Tony" Nicely, CEO & Chairman |
| Products | Auto insurance |
| Revenue | $9.212 billion USD (2004) |
Number of employees | 22,000 |
| Website | www.geico.com |
Government Employees Insurance Company, or GEICO, is an auto insurance company based in the United States. It was founded by Leo and Lillian Goodwin to market auto insurance directly to federal government employees and their families. GEICO was based on the assumption that such persons would constitute a more financially stable and less risky pool of potential insureds than the general public. After real-time access to computerized driving records became available in the 1970s throughout the United States, GEICO gradually began to insure the general public as well.
Since 1996 GEICO generally prefers to deal directly with consumers via the telephone and the Internet, freeing up capital that would otherwise be spent on employing insurance agents in the field and making the company the nation's largest direct writer of private auto insurance [1]. GEICO does, however, market their products through a small number of field agents, most of which are based near military bases. These agents are known as GFRs (GEICO Field Representatives).
GEICO is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway and currently provides coverage for 10 million vehicles owned by 7 million policyholders. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance in Washington DC and all US states except Massachusetts.
Commercials
GEICO's advertising strategy incorporates a saturation-level amount of print (primarily mail circulars) and television parody advertisements, as well as radio advertisements.
The ads sometimes focus on the company's mascot, the GEICO talking gecko, created by The Martin Agency and most recently a CGI creature generated by Rhythm and Hues Studios. The gecko first appeared in 2000 during the Screen Actors Guild strike that ruled out live actors.[2] In the first commercial, where people kept calling the gecko as a wrong number for GEICO, the gecko was given a high-class British accent because it would be unexpected, according to The Martin Agency's Steve Bassett. In current commercials the gecko's accent is more working-class, to further "humanize" him. "As (computer animation) got better and as we got to know the character better, we did a few things," says Steve Bassett, creative director at The Martin Agency. "We wanted to make him a little more guy-next-door. And he looks a lot more real than he's looked before."[3]
Another common theme is misdirection, in which the commercial appears to be about something unrelated, or not even be a commercial, and a person comes to say "I've got great news", but then unexpectedly says "I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to GEICO!". The commercials use a variety of fictional characters such as Speed Racer and professional wrestlers as well as real people such as Tony Little spoofing themselves. An additional theme is where fictional products are promoted, but the plugs end with "But it won't save you any money on car insurance." After the GEICO slogan is heard, the commercials end with "Why haven't you called Geico?" This type of reality-bending in commercials is reminiscent of the Energizer Bunny campaign for batteries which began in the late 80's.
In 2005, GEICO began an advertising campaign featuring "cavemen" in a modern setting. In these commercials, a GEICO spokesman tells how signing up for insurance is so easy that a caveman can do it and ends up offending the cavemen who are still around, either as part of the commercial's production crew or in erudite society.
During this time they also featured commercials that told you that in the time it takes to do a certain task, one could save money on car insurance. The tasks mentioned were related to the scene being played out, such as a man telling his significant other "You Betcha" without any known remorse for it when she asks him if the dress that she's wearing makes her look fat (saying "In the time it takes to pull out the sleeper sofa..."), or a guy joking and mocking a high-profile businessman ranked above him at a high priority and serious business meeting (saying "In the time it takes to clean out your desk...").
In recent comercials starring the gecko, he's ventured out into what seems like a domesticated jungle talking to his neighbors (other reptiles), who don't seem to be as enthusiastic about saving money on their car insurance. He says something to the effect of "Free Geico quotes are like free...pie an' chips. I mean, who doesn't want free pie and chips? It's pie...with chips...for free! But pie and chips...you can get 'em anywhere. Geico quotes: made from scratch, just for you. Only at geico.com."
GEICO also began more parody advertisements such as Japanese idol fan clubs, upcoming fictional Saturday morning cartoons, a cereal commercial with a green extreme panther, and senator election campaign ads. But the plugs end with "But it won't save you any money on car insurance." After the GEICO slogan is heard, the commercials end with "Why haven't you called Geico?"
The current ads being shown feature the GEICO gecko, voiced by Jake Wood being interviewed by an unseen man (voiced by James Urbaniak). There are also ads that feature stories from Geico customers about situations in which Geico assisted them, but told by celebrities such as Charo, Burt Bacharach, and Little Richard, who each add their own twist to the stories due to their well known ways of speaking. Don LaFontaine, Peter Graves, and Verne Troyer are also featured in similar situations.
A common tagline used by GEICO is that fifteen minutes can save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.
Market Reach
Over the years, Geico has introduced several other products to its offering, aside from car insurance. Geico is most widely known for its car insurance line of products, but also offers motorcycle and ATV insurance, home and renter's insurance, life insurance, umbrella insurance, and boat insurance.[4] As of July 2006, Geico has accumulated USD 21.2 billion in assets and has 12 major domestic offices including one in San Diego, California, Dallas, Texas, Lakeland, Florida, Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Woodbury, New York. Geico/Berkshire Hathaway, which is headed by renowned investor Warren Buffet has three affiliate companies, GEICO General, GEICO Indemnity and GEICO Casualty. According to Fortune Magazine, Berkshire Hathaway's property-casualty insurance has been "among the most admired in the country" since 2004. [5]
Popular Culture
In addition to its notoriety from the gecko commercials, Geico also has a reputation of providing its customers with inexpensive products without requiring the customer to spend time dealing with insurance agents, due to its extensive use of its web site and 24-hour telephone service as its primary points of sale. As a result, Geico is increasingly becoming popular among younger generations, to whose interests Geico's business model seems to cater well.
Fraud
A somewhat common euphemism[citation needed] that emerged as a result is the expression to Geico, which refers to a rather blatant act of insurance fraud usually involving more than one person who deliberately destroy a usually older, insured vehicle which has little or no use for the owner because of defects or wear and tear, the repair of which may be prohibitively expensive. The vehicle is usually destroyed to make it impossible or very difficult for authorities to find and identify the vehicle, for example by pushing it off a cliff, burying the vehicle, setting it on fire, or abandoning it in another country or unpopulated areas, such as in the desert. The vehicle is subsequently reported as stolen and the owner makes a claim for the full market value of the vehicle at the time the claim is made. If the vehicle's defects have not been reported to the insurance company, the owner can attempt to claim the full market value, disregarding the vehicle's poor condition. This enables the owner to purchase another used vehicle of similar value which does not require imminent repairs, and thereby avoid the maintenance costs of the old vehicle, which can often surpass the car's retail value by a wide margin, especially with very old models.
Background
Motivations for "Geicoing" vary greatly and may range from economic necessity and financial crises to stupidity, to boasting and elitism. For the latter purposes, the crime is often recorded or photographed, to be used to entertain others. Especially among teenaged and adolescent males, taking risks by obvious violation of the law, for example vandalism and theft, as well as more subtle infractions, such as fraud and intellectual property violations often serve to establish an individual's dominance in his community, and, depending on the features of the community, such behavior may be highly praised or rewarded. While fraud, vehicle theft, and related infractions are more common in households with an annual income of $7,500 or above, more violent crimes, such as burglary and assault occur at a higher rate in households with lower incomes [6]. Insurance fraud and piracy are more common in white-collar communities, and often earn the perpetrator more prestige.
In order to prevent fraud, underwriters, buyers, as well as sellers often make use of third-party data collection agencies, such as Carfax, which collects accident, odometer, repair, maintenace, and other pertinent vehicle history information for most vehciles in the United States built after 1981, in order to allow buyers to make an informed decision and, in conjunction with other reference materials, such as the Kelly Blue Book, to aid claims adjusters in determining a vehicle's actual market value, as well as many other uses.
References
- Revenue: premiums written (2004), from Berkshire Hathaway 10-K
- Little Lizard Says 'Ello To A New Inflection, The Hartford Courant, 22 February 2006