Anyone who’s been following the sordid story of Mercury Insurance, the sponsor of Proposition 17, will not be surprised that the company’s first salvo of thirty second TV ads is an attempted fraud on the voters. The spectacle of Mercury referring voters to deceptive statements made by its own paid spokespeople – as if they were taken from the factual analysis prepared by the Attorney General for the official voter guide – caught the attention of the Los Angeles Times, which posted this condemnation of the ads tonight. And we hear from our sources that Mercury is about to dump a load of Prop 17 disinformation on its own policyholders any day now.
This is the company that just a few weeks ago was accused by state regulators of overcharging its own customers and dozens of other violations of state insurance laws. That came on top of reports of previous investigations which concluded that the company routinely penalized people for such risky activities as working out of their own homes.
Mercury’s ad buy – now over $7 million – is timed to coincide with the beginning of absentee balloting. With virtually every newspaper in the state urging people to vote NO on 17, with no one but insurance agents appearing to defend Prop 17 against universal criticism by consumer and taxpayer advocates, Mercury apparently decided that deceit was the only alternative. I don’t think it’s gonna work. Californians are instinctively suspicious when they start seeing slick thirty second ads promising lower insurance rates. Soon Mercury’s sponsorship will be discussed at office water coolers and at dinner tables across the state. Then people will ask, “Since when does an insurance company spend millions to save me money?” The answer is obvious.
