ghetto insurance
I have ghetto car insurance. That doesn't mean its bad or fake necessarily, but its definitely ghetto.
I started getting ghetto car insurance when I used to live in a crappy little $350 a month apartment in Gulfport, FL, where the kitchen sink and the toilet were only about 80 inches apart.
I made so little money back then that car insurance wasn't high on my list of expenditures. So what I did for a while was go down to the closest insurance office and get the cheapest car insurance I could, and then never make any payment beyond the down payment. Basically, I was paying a hundred bucks or so for an insurance card that, while it wasn't actually fake, wasn't really real either.
What makes car insurance ghetto? Well, first of all you get it in the ghetto. The ghetto insurance office is surrounded by all the typical ghetto things: sun baked, mumbling bums; black kids with their baggy shorts pulled down to their ankles; liquor stores, etc. The people that come to the ghetto insurance office are doing their very best to comply with the mininum insurance that the law requires, and they come into the office to get a policy on cars like: a 1982 Chevy Chevette, with a door that is a different color than the rest of the car and a missing back bumper, or even '78 Caprice Classic that has a garbage bag for a rear passenger window and a muffler that is tied to the frame with a coat hanger.
For some reason ghetto insurance offices never seem to have any form of decoration or style to them. No potted plants, no paintings, no posters, no nothing. They are usually just a stark white room witha drop panel ceiling and one or two desks with old computers. Most of the people that come to the ghetto insurance office are there to make a very late, last minute payment, or hopefully get a policy back that has been canceled.
The names of ghetto insurance offices are totally generic and unheard of. (Asset America was the name of the one in Gulfport, which just recently changed its name to Trustway(???). There definitely are no slick commercials on primetime for them with an animated gecko, or clever SNL quality ruses that make you think you're watching an ad for a new hair club for men, or a new reality show. There are no bold claims that an adjuster is going to drive up the accident site and smilingly cut you a check while there's still bits of glass in your forehead. You know about the ghetto insurance place because it is in the ghetto and you are in the ghetto and thats what you got--period.
Even the names of their underwriters sound kind of dubious: Seminole Casualty Insurance? Ocean Underwriters? (I imagine another very generic office in a completely generic city that's furnished only with card tables and a couple of telephones. The fly by night owners make a few bucks off writing some policies, but the minute a claim comes in they fold up all the folding card tables jump in their mini-van and zoom off to a new location.
When you get a policy from one of these generic underwiters, you don't get any type of substantial card to put in your wallet with an official logo and a look of legitimacy. But instead you get a sheet of printer paper with a policy number and the company name on it. Typically theres a dotted line that makes the shape of an insurance card, and I guess the idea is that you can use scissors to cut out the card shape and stuff it in you wallet.
More likey than not however, after you get pulled over by a cop for a California stop, your paper insurance card (cut-out or not) will be completely unfindable in that pannicky moment when your rummaging through your glove compartment, all the while wondering if your girlfriend left that roach in your ashtray the other night. Even if you are able to produce the flimsy insurance card, the police man raises his eyebrow at it, suspecting its something you made yourself on your home computer. But alas, he is too jaded to pursue it and he just issues you your ticket for a hundred and sixty-five dollars.
(Jeez, this turned out to be a little longer than I planned).
Anyway, ghetto insurance, like I said, isn't necessarily fake. I think I've made a couple claims on mine. One time I was driving my very own dumptruck which was as tough and heavy as a Sherman tank. I was making a left turn at a green light, and thought I had let all the oncoming traffic through before making my turn. But alas, as my Sheman tank was dead in the middle of the lane when this Mexican family in a Cutlass Supreme came screeching at me at fifty miles per hour. I remember seeing their horrified faces as the inevitable impact was upon them, and then I saw their front tag which said, "God is my co-pilot."
The front end of their Cutlass was cumpled like a Mexican accordian, while my Sherman tank only got a slightly bent bumper.
I guess the accident was like winning the lottery for the Mexicans because I got a call from my insurance agent that they had made a claim for the maximum amount my policy would pay, and their lawyers might come after me if the amount was insufficient.
I'm sure after looking into my assets, or the lack thereof, their lawyer informed them to be happy with the money that they got.
Another time I rear ended a guy in my Dodge Durango not more than a month after getting the car. When I called my ghetto car insurance company to make a claim all I got was a recording, which told me to leave my name, policy number, info about the accident etc. The image of the fly-by-night card table underwiters flashed in my head and I got kind of depressed. But to my surprise, I actually got a call back. I even got a check to fix the damage, minus my $500 dollar deductible of course.
Anyway, blah, blah, blah.
So, even after getting a better job (sort of) and making a lot more money, I still kept going to the ghetto insurance offices out of force of habit. Afterall, they had all my info in their computer and sort of knew who I was, etc. Plus, with my driving record, my motorist self esteem was kind of low, and I imagined myself getting laughed out of an Allstate, or State Farm office.
Just today I went down to my ghetto insurance office on central avenue. I was pleased to see there were no other customers in the office and there was a pleasant fat lady there to help me. I noticed that she was new, so I asked her something about how she liked working there.
"You know, I don't normally work here and I don't really like it," she confided. "This office is kind of.......ghetto."
I looked outside and saw weed-filled empty lots, and listless no-goodniks passing bye.
"You know, I don't even live near this office either," I confessed. "I've just been coming here for years just because."
The fat insurance lay looked at my address on her computer.
"Why you live right near my fourth street office. Once this policy expires in March, you need to come down and see me there. Its so much nicer," she said.
"Yes, that area is really booming," I said. "The Carrabas, the Outback, the Panera bread, the Starbucks. All symbols of prosperity."
And because the fat lady paved the way out of there, I knew this was my last visit to the ghetto insurance office on central avenue. On the way out of there I passed a chuch and an abortion clinic on the same block.
7:56:25 PM 
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