Friday, October 1, 2010

No Fire Insurance - No Fire Fighter!


This is not a jab at firemen or the fire department. They do a great job. This is for the private fire fighters hired by insurance companies. (Extra special coverage, as long as you have paid for it.) Why would they help, if you were not a policy holder. Some how it does not seem right to me.
Thanks for reading.

10 comments:

chtripp said...

love the fire cartoons, keep up the great work!

rag said...

Great cartoon but actually the history of American firefighting begins precisely with fire brigades sponsored by insurance companies. I see this as no different than a store having security guards. The store security may apprehend a shoplifter and turn him or her over to the police. Obviously the municipal police force can't station an officer inside the store. This is a supplemental service provided by agents of the homeowners and I see nothing wrong with it.

This is not to demean municipal and state firefighters who do a tremendous job.

Anonymous said...

Seems to me that if you pay for something, then you should get it. Choice's by others is not ground for anger

Anonymous said...

I think it's great that Chubb is offering this service to its policyholders--at no extra cost to the policyholders! I know for a fact that insurance-sponsored firefighters are not authorized to enter properties of non-policyholders and, in fact, cannot even help its own policyholders if they have not registered for this service and given the insurance company permission to enter the property. As for helping a homeowner whose home is fully engulfed in flames--well, no one can help at that point.

Anonymous said...

I think it seems wrong as well. Community firefighters have the intention of stopping the fire, period. Their strategies and priorities will focus on the best way to do that. Private firefighters have the intention of protecting certain homes, period. Their priorities are monetary. This intrinsically creates a moral dilemma. The comment below comparing the tragedy of a fire to a shoplifter is ignorant and rude. That person has obviously never lost his everything he's owned or a loved one in a fire. Can you imagine a fully capable, conscious, private fire crew standing by while someone's house was burning down. Imagine there were people or animals in that house, not to mention losing your home can have devastating rippling effects. We can't start applying monetary value to lives. That is as demoralizing as it gets to a society. I guess superman had it all wrong, the doing good for goodness sake, he should have been showing up to an active crime scene and offering to help for $1000. He would've made a killing!

Anonymous said...

This blows me away... Fire Marks are back in 2010. This was a practice in New England with Ben Franklin. Let the professional firefighters do the job...

Anonymous said...

"rag"'s comment about
"supplemental service" sure makes him sound like he just might be in the insurance biz. I can think of very few fire fighters who could just drive past a home in direct threat of ignighting-let alone being on fire. Not all of us can afford this additional insurance and their statement that homes lost were valued at between $300,000.-multi-million $$$?? My heart goes out to all those who couldn't afford or didn't know about the "add on" policy. I have to laugh when a man who was going through my home that's for sale and is considering "helping" his daughter buy it lives in an exclusive area of San Diego County where several multi-million $$ mansions were lost in the '03 firestorm. Not his of course. BUT, he managed to "scoop up a grand view lot" and is building an even more extravagent "Tara" on that lot. Big Woof!

Unknown said...

The caption is extremely misleading. The insurance companies are only supplementing existing protection, not hindering it. There truly are areas without contracted fire brigades and everyone has the right to protect themselves and should take as much responsibility as possible for their own defense.

Unknown said...

The caption is extremely misleading. The insurance companies are only supplementing existing protection, not hindering it. There truly are areas without contracted fire brigades and everyone has the right to protect themselves and should take as much responsibility as possible for their own defense.

Sam Wallace said...

Thanks for all the comments, this is what political cartoons are all about, provoking good discussion.