Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 February 4

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February 4

Online car insurance quotes ?

This is for Michigan, USA. I've gotten these quotes before, but I seem to find nothing but scam sites when trying to compare rates this year.

What I want:

A site which asks for all my info, compares the various insurers, quote me rates, allows me to select one, put in my credit card info to buy the policy online, then email me proof of insurance.

What I get:

A site which asks for all my info, then lists phone numbers of insurance agents to call, or, even worse, announces at the end that agents will now call me, at their convenience, on the phone number I entered previously. This is precisely what I want to avoid, being bothered by salespeople at home.

So, do sites still exist that do what I want ? If so, which ones ? StuRat (talk) 01:56, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't Progressive claim to do that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:50, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

It's either the Gecko, or go with the Flo, Stu. Or President Palmer. Or those Sexy Models who pop up at the site of your accident. μηδείς (talk) 03:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

GEICO was the only one that seemed to allow me to complete the transaction online, although even they say they will send me lots of paperwork I then need to fill out and return. The other 3 all wanted to call me. But this is still far from what I wanted, a site which will gather my info, compare all the rates, and sign me up for the cheapest one. Think the original Priceline.com model, but with insurance. StuRat (talk) 06:35, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Stu, I don't think that any of us is unclear on what you're describing but, due to the lack of response, it seems that none of us remember such a site. I know I don't. The closest that I can think of is that Progressive or Geico used to advertise that they'd show you quotes from a few agencies and basically promised to be the lowest one. I never understood it to mean that they'd sign you up for any of them right then and there though. Dismas|^(talk) 07:01, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd be surprised if such a site didn't exist in the US... Here in Britain all of the comparison sites I've used will take you straight through to the insurer's website to get the insurance. Perhaps there's some regulatory difference which means that online consent is not sufficient. I had the insurance certificate posted to me, but nothing that needed signing as far as I recall. MChesterMC (talk) 09:07, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

It's worth noting why insurance companies seem so eager to show you lower rates from other companies. When you ask for a quote, they do some calculations and come up with what they believe to be a reasonable rate given the risks of you having an accident and the likely cost of your future claims. If they discover other companies offering lower rates - based on the exact same information - then they have to conclude that the other guys are underestimating the risks. By having you take insurance from those people, they may reasonably believe that they are harming their competitors by giving them business that's too risky for the price being charged - while denying them access to more profitable customers for whom the other company is judged to have over-estimated the risks. Of course this requires that they believe that their own actuarial skills are better than the opposition...but one assumes that they have confidence in their own abilities in this regard.

Given that, they don't want to also do all of the work of processing the claim through to the point of a credit card payment - so they leave you to talk to the other company yourself.

So the only chance you have to find a service that does all of that work is one that is independent of any insurance company and which can strike a deal with them to get some payback when a customer takes insurance after using their website.

A complicating factor here is that it's not easy to do an "apples and apples" comparison of two auto policies because they'll differ in detail about things like what's covered, what deductibles there are, etc. It's not like booking a hotel room. That's one of the reasons why the ObamaCare website is suffering so much pain - showing customers comparisons between apples and oranges isn't easy. SteveBaker (talk) 14:34, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

That's some very interesting OR, Steve. Do you have any citations that indicate directing one's potential clients to one's competitors to hurt those competitors is a common or viable strategy? Do you have a reference that says the reason one company doesn't establish a contract between its potential clients and its competitors has to do with the inconvenience of processing orders, rather than, say, the actual illegality of fraudulently contracting on behalf of a non-consenting third party? Any links, Steve? μηδείς (talk) 04:33, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The online sites I have found ask about deductibles, coverage levels, etc., in extreme detail, so should be able give me an apples-to-apples quote. The only things not considered are intangibles, like how good their customer service is. On the other hand, hotels with the same rating are most definitely not all the same, so that is an apples-and-oranges comparison, one reason why that Priceline business model largely failed, and they had to add more traditional travel agent services to survive. StuRat (talk) 05:42, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I just tried esurance.com. However, not being a US resident I could only go so far. All the same, it seemed happy to quote 4 different insurance companies and then hand me over to the insurance company website (presumably to complete purchase of the policy, online and using a credit card). This is much the same behavoir as I have come to expect from insurance comparison sites here in Europe. Astronaut (talk) 12:42, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Here are some tidbits on the source of Flo's price comparison policy.John Z (talk) 02:05, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Can you help me find a forgotten poem?

Hello, way back in college I read a poem as part of a Classics class (it is probably a fairly notable/famous poem, at least among classics professors). I think it was written in the 20th century (it couldn't have been 21st ;), and it was very short (a dozen lines?), and was sort of about Odysseus. I thought maybe it was by Ezra Pound or Nikos Kazantzakis, but those names aren't helping me find it. Here's what I remember: True poets understand [the importance of little details?]/ When Odysseus [came back, got to X place, whatever]/ He tightened his belt, and [some other thing]/ This is what [the odyssey/poetry/the human condition] was all about/ This is what is important, [how Odysseus tightened his belt.]

Ok, so that's a horrible, poorly remembered paraphrasing, it might be totally out of order, but I think I got the ideas right :) What stuck in my head is that the poem rather literally said that only true/good poets understand that the important bit is how he tightened his belt, and some other minor details. Any leads? I'll be happy to supply other detail if I can. Thanks! SemanticMantis (talk) 22:54, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

There's no shortage of poems that include Odysseus and that's making the search difficult. Even removing the ones by W. S. Merwin and Tennyson still leaves you with tons of hits, but I don't see any that mention his belt and most are also too recent. A couple of suggestions: do you recall what book it might have been printed in? Was it a book of poetry or a book about Classical antiquity that happened to have a poem in it? If the latter, it could be that what you got was only an excerpt and the work itself is much longer. Did it rhyme or have a distinctive meter? Are you sure it was Odysseus and not Ulysses? Sounds obvious, but you could also try contacting the professor directly. Matt Deres (talk) 01:23, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Google search of: girded his loins odysseus poet, didn't turn up anything (in first 100 hits) but came close, even got a few for Nikos Kazantzakis. Your question reminded me of a professor who mentioned a book? short story? play? about someone who the devil tormented (not Faust) so that everything good or beautiful turned out ugly (or something like that), I asked in a forum once if anyone knew what that was. Raquel Baranow (talk) 13:42, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

The Poetry Library in London specializes in this kind of query. You can contact them here. --Viennese Waltz 14:09, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies so far. If it helps, I recall the poem having no end rhyme, and no strong metrical structure. More in the vein of free verse or a poem in prose, maybe with a few internal rhymes. The poem was part of a hand-out, not in one of our textbooks. It could well be part of a larger work, but the ~12 lines or so seemed to be a full section. I'm pretty sure it was spelt "Odysseus", but I don't usually draw much distinction between that guy and "Ulysses" :) I'm happy to check out any suggestions posted. It could also actually be Kazantzakis, but he also talks about Odysseus a lot! The strongest memory I have is of "tightened his belt", but of course that could also be translated as "girded his loins" if the poem wasn't originally in English. I will try to track down the prof (if he's still at that uni, and if I can remember his name), and also check VW's resource. Oh, and User:Raquel Baranow, your comment reminds me a bit of Contempt_(film), which was also discussed in the same class. The movie is about a director making a movie about the Odyssey, and everything beautiful just ends up engendering hatred/contempt. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:00, 5 February 2014 (UTC)