Way, way past time to simplify insurance

Liberty Mutual Insurance has some neat commercials. Particularly enjoy the cute gal talking about her car “Brad”. They have another ad that hits home on one of the biggest problems in the industry – at least for its customers. That is the lack of a simplified, cogent explanation of what your policy covers and what it does not. It should be a page or less and in 14 point or larger type (slightly larger than newspaper type). And it should be legally required of all companies, all policies on at least a state, but preferably federal level. But to do that, legislators would have to jump out of insurance lobbies pockets. It’s hard to see that happening without a less than gentle nudge from us, the electorate.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

1. Now that the national political conventions are over, is there any chance that one or, hopefully, both of the presidential candidates will start acting presidential instead of like a bully and a harpy?

2. On the eve of the Democratic convention, all the national media is ablaze with stories of the DNC’s attempts to rig the primary. Locally, it ranks page 15 in our remaining newspaper – the front page consisting of essentially an unpaid three-quarter page ad for the Clinton campaign. In the old days, you burned the books; now you just buy out the dissenting competition.

3. In an associated item, aren’t we Floridians proud of the fact we can claim Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as one of our own? Actually she’s a New York transplant – who would have guessed that?

4. A follow up to our lead item of last week on Charter’s shortcomings. Despite outages, broken promises and a general we don’t care attitude, Charter (the former Bright House) Communication’s saving grace is Frontier Communications whose massive troubles make Charter look passable. Kind of like a D making a C- appear good.

5. Beach and Island Estates residents are bracing themselves this week for the closure of the Island Estates Publix for probably a year or so while a new store is constructed on the current site. The new store will add only about an extra one thousand square feet to the current footprint. The average Publix is a third again as large. For your HB (Humble Blogger), the closing is a mixed bag – we will miss the convenience but will be better off without the easy access to a late night treat (read ice cream).

6. All these summer holidays and weekends, you can only imagine how much beer is consumed each weekend. We asked a team member at Great Bay Distributors about the biggest day or weekend for beer sales. To our surprise, it is not a summer holiday weekend, but the day before Thanksgiving.

7. In a related historical note, you’ve lived in the bay area a long time if you remember when admission (and beer) at Busch Gardens were free. Needless to say, it was a favorite stop for students of nearby USF.

The diamond, the media and other stuff:

8. Chicago White Sox pitcher Chris Sale was over the top with his cutting up of some so-called throwback uniforms and his suspension justified. But he makes a good point – only the most naïve believe those uniforms are tributes to teams past. They are simply another sales item and players look and feel ridiculous in them.

9. It’s hard to get excited about the trading deadline when your favorite team is over 20 games below .500 (as are five teams including our Rays). You have to be a baseball super geek to get charged up about some A-ball stud pitcher you received for your best pitcher or hitter.

10. By the way, the actress in that “Brad” commercial mentioned above is New Jersey native Midori Francis, who has done quite a bit of stage work in the New York area.

A new approach to post season baseball

We have ranted beyond most folks tolerances about the idiocy of having an All-Star exhibition game determine the home field advantage for the World Series. There are two solutions, neither of which is the old system of rotating between the AL and NL each year. The first which involves some possible logistics issues is having regular season records determine home field advantage. Major hurdle there is you might not know until a few days before the World Series who that is. But, it’s not much different than the current system from a logistics standpoint. The perhaps more radical approach is more of an NFL system where cities bid years in advance for the series. Then all seven games are played there with the team with the best record getting games one and seven as the home team. A variation to that theme would be selecting an AL and NL park in advance for each year’s series again with the best regular season record getting games one and seven. Perhaps there are other solutions but almost anything would be better than the current farce.

SNEAK PEEK AT NEXT WEEK – YOU WANT TO BELIEVE IT’S THE CUBS’ YEAR BUT…