Can't Choose, Won't Choose

One of the frustrations of modern life is the indentikit nature of all towns. If you walk down any high street there will be the same shops, selling the same range of goods.

This is hardly a new phenomena, and indeed people have been moaning about it for years.

But I might be able to offer a possible reason: insurance companies.

Consider what happened say 20 years ago when you made an insurance claim. The insurance company would ask you to go and get an estimate from a shop for a like-for-like replacement of the lost or damaged product. The customer would then be sent a cheque to cover the amount of the replacement.

The main problem with this system was that it cost insurance companies a great deal of money because they were paying the reatil, and not the wholesale value of the claim.

Today insurance companies operate through a system of prefered suppliers. The claiment will be told to go to the supplier and select a replacement from their range.

It is very rare that the insurance company will allow a claiment to get a quote from a supplier that is not on their list. Generally only highly specialised items like antiques or Asian jewellry will be elligible for a pay out using the old quotation system.

The customer is happy, partcularly in relation to electrical goods, because they get the latest technology. The prefered supplier is happy because they have a guaranteed cash flow. And the Insurance company is happy because at a stroke they have slashed the amount of money they are paying out on claims.

The only loser in this scenario is the independent retailer.

Not least because it is estimated that around 20% of all insurance claims are fraudulant. For instance, an ancient TV stops working. So the customer pours orange squash down the back of it, and claims that their child did this accidentally. The claim is not of sufficent value for the insurance company to justify sending an investigator. So they refer the customer to the prefered supplier, and the customer has a new television.

Nothing exemplifies this process more than the issue of mobile phones.

I suspect that there are very few personal possession claims, for instance a snatched handband, that doesn't include a mobile phone. And you would be amazed at how often they are dropped down the toilet or 'acidentally' put through the washer. And it is remarkable how often these accidents occur shortly after there is an upgrade available for that brand of phone.

And frankly there is no real checking done by insurance companies. If the claiment says it was stolen, all that is needed is a crime number.

When I worked for an insurance company we were required to ask if the contract had been cancelled but were not allowed to check that it had. And providing the claiment had not made a similar claim within the previous four months the claim was just paid. And believe me there were people who dropped the phone down the loo with regularity.

Oh and while I am moaning about shopping.

The other day I went into Waterstones to see if they had any books about the War of the Spanish Succession. Admittedly this is a rather forgotten area of European history, which is a shame because it terms of the creation of the modern world it had enormous impacts.

Had the Anglo-Dutch alliance been beaten by the French would have become an Empire stretching from Spain to the Danube. There would in all likelihood have been no French Revolution and the principle of Absolute monarchy would have become the dominant political philosophy in Europe.

The war marked the beginning of the newly created Great Britain's domininence of global trade, as it eclipsed the Dutch and secured Gibralter. The slave trade began in ernest. And wars stopped being principally a matter of religion and became a matter of national pride.

Of course there was not a single book on the subject in Waterstones. There were rows of books on the Nazi's and lots's of books which tied into television programs, but nothing on Marlborough.

Though more surprisingly in the Alternative Health section I noticed they had a book called, something like, the 100 best vibrators.

Now I realise that I am not totally au fait with modern culture: and thankfully so. But I am still slightly baffled as to why, and indeed when, masturbation became part of the alternative health industry.

peace:)