The Insurance Industry... In A Nutshell...

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A hockey shot contest might be skating on thin ice with fans -- of both the game and charity.

At a U.S. Hockey League game Saturday in Indianapolis, a fan was challenged to make a difficult hockey goal. But after Richard Marsh made the seemingly impossible shot, he found out he was disqualified from the $50,000 reward, TIME.com reports.

Marsh shot a puck into a six-inch goal from nearly 200 feet away. But a third-party insurance company decided not to count the goal.

A press release from the Indiana Ice Hockey Team released today states that the decision to not dole out the prize money came from the third-party insurance who pays prize money based on whether contestants make hockey shots within specific guidelines. The contestant was disqualified because he made the shot from outside a designated area.

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Decide for yourself!

Link (w/Video): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/15/richard-marsh-hockey-charity-shot_n_823662.html

Fucking parasites.

:mad:

:kick:

and they still refused to pay up.

:shrug:

So the payout was not covered.

Why is this so complicated?

Exactly ???

Cause it looked like everyone in the arena thought he had met the task.

Plus... even if he technically did not... what a weenie move. Bet it costs them way more than the prize money in bad publicity.

:shrug:

If you WATCHED the video, it says right on the screen WHY he failed.

The insurance policy says the shot mus be made into a six inch goal from behind the red line.

Rules were not followed, therefore the insurance company isn't going to pay out.

Insurance is not a free pass to do whatever the hell you want and collect; you can't burn down your own house and collect, or kill someone you have an insurance policy on. It's an actuarial scale, and this guy didn't follow the rules so the payout was void.

The idea that you think the payout should be made despite breaking the rules is troubling.

The MC, the Mascot, anybody there could have told him to move the puck back behind the Red Line.

They did not. He made the shot THEY WERE POSITIVE NOBODY WOULD MAKE and them weenied out of the contest.

It's called welshing on a bet, and in some places, could get one hurt.

Your concern for the welfare of Insurance Companies is also troubling.

:wtf:

They failed to instruct him properly on the rules. (However you will notice that when lining up to actually take the shot, the mascot is concious to stay behind the line.)

The insurance company writes a policy that says that a shot will be taken from x number of feet into a goal 6 inches across. They calculate the odds and the hockey team pays accordingly.

They expect that the hockey team will be smart enough to follow the terms of their insurance policy and keep the contestants behind the red line.

If you go and buy an insurance policy on your car, and tell them that you use it only for personal use, and then have an accident while using it for work, that claim will not be honored.

If you tell the insurance company that you have $50,000 in contents in your home, and then try to make a claim for $75,000 after it burns down, they will not honor that claim either.

If you don't understand how insurance works (allowing you to buy protection for a minimal rate) and how violations of policies and ccontracts exclude you from coverage, there really isn't much point in continuing this discussion.

This was not some payout of an insurance policy!

They were using this as a marketing gig, did not expect to ever have to pay it out, and got bit in the ass.

The fact that:



I hope they lose a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of business because of their idiotic PR stunt.

Serves 'em right!

:wtf:

If the guy has to sue someone for it, he should sue the team.

If the team blames the insurance company, then they're welcome to sue them - but pay the fuck out or take the bad publicity on the chin. What a bunch of chickenshits.

The hockey team put on the contest.

They (like every other company that has a long-shot contest) purchased an INSURANCE POLICY to cover the possibility that someone would actually succeed in the challenge.

The terms of the policy were not followed so the insurance company would not pay.

WHY IS THIS SO COMPLICATED?

And for the record, the hockey team did make good and paid the $50k.

Who the fuck ARE these crooks and liars ???

:evilgrin:

How can they do a thing like this? Build up a man's hopes and then smash all his dreams to pieces!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKG07305CBs

The real crime here is that everyone is passing the buck. No one has the decency to say, whoops, we made a mistake. What started out as a good promotional idea has turned rancid. I'm not an Allstate customer and would never have become an Allstate customer, so neither of us is gaining or losing any money from our non-relationship. However, my opinion of Allstate is now down around zero on a scale of 1 to 10. All they had to do was take the high road, or insist that the participants in this fiasco take the high road. And all it would have cost was the cost of the "hole in one" insurance.

As for the "technicality," I watched that video, and, at least from what was shown, there was no effort to direct the person to or away from a specific shooting area.

Here's Allstate's response to my critical e-mail to them:


Thank you for your request via Allstate.com. Your concerns are important to us and we appreciate the opportunity to address them.
Please allow me to sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. Allstate wishes to clarify details surrounding its sponsorship of the $50,000 Allstate Good Hands Shootout with the Indiana Ice Hockey Team. As part of a promotional agreement, Allstate is sponsor in name of an on-ice contest where at every Saturday Ice game; a fan has the chance at winning $50,000 by shooting a puck from full length. The Indiana Ice Hockey Team executes the promotion including making any payments for winning shots and determining calls related to the qualification of the shot.


I’m going to close your file for now but please reply to this e-mail at your earliest convenience if you have any questions. I can be reached between the hours of 8:15 am and 4:30 pm Eastern Standard Time.

In an effort to continue to improve our processes you may receive a survey call asking how well I handled your concern. We value your responses so we can provide the best customer service. Thank you for doing business with Allstate.


You would think that in this era of PR firms specializing in damage control and image management, that they would have handled this better. All they've done is reinforce already negative opinions of insurance companies. In other words, regardless of what they promise, they can't be trusted.