In case you thought insurance industry bashing in pop culture was a relatively recent phenomenon after reading my Dec. 8 entry about the negative image of evil carriers perpetuated in the new TNT drama “Leverage,” think again! Apparently, such knee-jerk slams go all the way back to the 1950s, and not even a sci-fi classic like “The Day The Earth Stood Still” could resist the temptation to take a cheap shot at this much-maligned business.

I watched the original movie (and loved it, by the way!) to refresh my memory before seeing the remake later this week. If you recall, it's about a “spaceman,” as he's called, and his killer robot coming to Earth in a flying saucer to warn us not to spread our nuclear wars beyond our atmosphere, or face certain destruction by planets that are vastly superior–scientifically and morally.

Of course, everyone on Earth is terrified of the spaceman, who gets shot as he holds up a harmless gift for our president, then is tracked down and killed by a military posse later on (only to be brought back to life by his amazingly advanced technology).

In between, he blends in with the crowd in Washington, D.C., to take the mood and pulse of the civilian population–coming across as a bit odd, but harmless. He even befriends a young boy and his widowed mom, who ends up saving his life by fetching the robot to rescue him.

However, the woman's clean-cut boyfriend betrays the spaceman's identity and turns him into the military, bragging about how his tip is going to make him the biggest man in America, and certainly will lead to a promotion at his firm.

What does this rotten snitch do for a living? Of course! He's an INSURANCE SALESMAN! You just KNOW you can't trust those guys, right??? (Of course, the movie never specifies whether this despicable stool pigeon sells life or property-casualty insurance–a point of great distinction within the insurance world to this day, but of no consequence to the overwhelmingly majority of Americans, who feel if they've one insurance salesman, they've seen them all!)

Meanwhile, here's a disturbing postscript to my “Leverage” blog of Dec. 8.

If you recall, the program is about a former insurance fraud investigator whose carrier denies a claim for medical treatment that might have saved his dying son's life. He goes on to form a group of thieves among those he once tracked down, as part of a modern Robin Hood story to steal from bad guys and help those they victimize. If they screw his former insurer in the process, so much the better!

In the Dec. 16 episode, we meet the character who replaced the star as his former insurer's lead investigator. The guy, of course, is a sleazy jerk–without pity or a sense of decency.

In one scene, the star pleads with his replacement to lay off his client, who he insists is innocent of arson. The investigator sneers at our white knight, before spitting out these immortal words that sums up what far too many feel about the insurance industry's standard operating philosophy:

“We're insurance men,” he says. “We don't care who's guilty or who's innocent–only who pays.”

How nice. No wonder the public thinks everyone in this business is crooked or insensitive.

Special Reports /

Insurance Industry Can't Escape Pop Culture Bashing

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