The company literally won’t explain why “It doesn’t make any sense,”
http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2013/06/26/19379-why-does-geico-insurance-refuse-electric-car-owners-coverage/ Why Does Geico Insurance Refuse Electric Car Owners Coverage? By Sophie Cocke 06/26/2013 The insurance company Geico won’t, for some seemingly inexplicable reason, cover electric vehicles for new customers. By inexplicable, I mean that the company literally won’t explain why. Civil Beat spent a week trying to get an answer from Geico about why the company that is famous for its Cockney-accented Gecko mascot doesn't like electric cars. The company systematically refuses to insure such non-gasoline-powered vehicles in Hawaii, although it makes an exception for some long-term customers. No one — not Geico’s general manager in Hawaii, nor its corporate communications team in Washington, D.C. — was willing to explain the logic of the company's guidelines. Geico is the island's largest auto insurer — covering about one-fourth of all the vehicles on the road, according to information from Hawaii’s insurance division. The company's anti-electric guidelines offer a striking contrast to the federal government, which is pouring billions of dollars into improving such technology. Federal policy is in line with environmental policies and a pressing desire to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The state government has also invested millions to promote electric vehicles through rebates and by developing an elaborate network of charging stations throughout the islands. Geico clearly has doubts about electric cars, but not everywhere. The company does insure electric cars in California, perhaps due to the size of the electric vehicle market there. And the company does cover hybrid vehicles, which use a combination of electric batteries and gasoline, according to Tim Dayton, GEICO's general manager in Hawaii. Also, customers in Hawaii whose previous gasoline-powered vehicle was insured by Geico might be able to get protection for electric cars, insurance representatives told Civil Beat. But if you buy or lease an all-electric vehicle — which a growing number of people are doing — and then seek coverage, the company wants nothing to do with you. In some ways, it seems like an odd business decision in a market like Hawaii. The state has an aggressive goal to reduce oil consumption from ground transportation by 70 percent by the year 2030, and Hawaii is seen by many electric car manufacturers as an ideal market. Unlike on the mainland, you can only drive so far in Hawaii, so drivers don't tend to suffer from mainlanders' "range anxiety," which is the fear of a car battery dying far from a charging station. Statewide there are more than 300 charging stations throughout the islands. Dave Rolf, the executive director of the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association, said that the islands are to the electric car "what Napa is to the grape.” It is unclear whether or not the Geico Gecko likes wine, but he and the company that he represents don't seem interested in talking about electric cars. When Civil Beat contacted the head of the automobile dealers association, several electric vehicle dealers, and the state energy office, all of them said that Geico's decision not to cover electric cars was a surprise to them. None of them have seen the notes that Geico sends out to electric car owners that say: "We regret that we cannot accept your request for insurance at this time." The specific reason, such letters say, is "Type of vehicle is unacceptable." “It doesn’t make any sense,” said Kurt Speas, an electric vehicle salesman at Tony Nissan, which sells the Nissan Leaf. “It has an off-the-chart safety rating.” Jeff Mikulina, executive director of the Honolulu-based Blue Planet Foundation, a clean energy advocacy group, said it doesn't make good business sense for Geico to reject the growing electric vehicle market. There are about 1,400 electric vehicles on the road in Hawaii, but that number has doubled in the past year, and there are no signs of it abating any time soon. (There are more than 15,000 hybrid vehicles on the road.) “We need to reduce every barrier to people buying electric vehicles,” said Mikulina. “The last thing we want is people saying, ‘Oh no, how are we going to insure it?’” Does the Geico Gecko Have a Voice? Geico has an entire department devoted to communications, but no one contacted by Civil Beat was willing to respond to repeated requests for an explanation of company guidelines on electric vehicles. Civil Beat called Geico's corporate communications department in Washington, D.C. numerous times last week, but no one answered the phone or returned our messages. Finally on Friday, Civil Beat did reach a member of the public relations staff through the company's operator. Tony Blue, a public relations coordinator for Geico, told Civil Beat that the office hadn’t received any of our voice messages. He said he would get back to us on Monday. But when Civil Beat called him on Monday, he said, “I sent the request through and nobody responded back. So I don’t think we are going to respond to it.” Locally, Tim Dayton, Geico’s general manager in Hawaii, said that he doesn't know enough to explain why the company doesn't insure electric vehicles. He promised that Christine Tasher from the company's corporate communications department would contact us on Monday. Tasher did not respond to queries by e-mail and by phone, and Civil Beat is still waiting for a call that will explain Geico's dislike of electric vehicles. And waiting. Here's one of the letters that Geico sends to customers with electric vehicles: [ http://www.slideshare.net/civilbeat/geico-pdf ] Geico pdf from Civil Beat [© 2010-2013 Peer News] http://hawaii.news.blogs.civilbeat.com/post/53950583856/geicos-consumer-advice-columnist-says-evs-not-ready Geico’s Consumer Advice Columnist Says EV’s Not Ready for Primetime by Civil Beat Staff 06/26/2013 Geico Corporate Communications wouldn’t respond to Civil Beat’s numerous inquiries about why it won’t insure electric vehicles, as CB reported Wednesday in: Why Does Geico Insurance Refuse Electric Car Owners Coverage? But this hasn’t stopped Geico from publishing consumer advice about electric cars. Its page, “Are Electric Vehicles Right for You?” [ https://www.geicoprivileges.com/members/article.php?sid=26XXdKrlo26&xid=129049 ] warns of the “huge price premiums" associated with hybrids and EV’s and the time it takes to charge the cars. The website suggests holding off on buying EV’s: "Unless you just have to own the latest EV on the market, it may be worth your while to wait and see what other people’s experiences are with their vehicles, especially as mileage improves for gasoline-powered cars," it says. The web post is written by a Canadian mechanic named, Phil Bailey, who maintains his own blog, “Phil Bailey’s Auto World.” [ http://www.baileycar.com/ ] Bailey’s not particularly taken with the “green movement" or electric cars. On Phil Bailey’s Auto World, he writes: Green technologies, especially the electric car, are far from proving themselves. Look, if you were to peel back the left’s support for green energy and its desire to reduce carbon emissions, what you find is a group of people who have fundamental problems with the USAs’ energy consumption. They don’t like the fact they consume 24 percent of the world’s energy and they say it’s a tragedy that the average American consumes twice the energy of a person in Japan, or six times the average Mexican. They also think the U.S. should pare back its size, its influence and its capabilities. But you don’t get to be the world’s biggest economy on a snickers bar and a shoe string. It takes energy and lots of it. Civil Beat tracked Bailey down to see if he had any insight on why Geico isn’t insuring electric vehicles. He said that it’s because electric vehicles have costly maintenance problems, including the need to replace the batteries. "The battery technology is bad and it’s not ready for primetime by any means," he said. Bailey also said that EV’s have very little benefit when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions, compared to gasoline fueled vehicles. “You haven’t really solved any kind of environmental problem," he said. Bailey said that he was paid by Geico to write a monthly column for the company on EV’s for about 10 years - up until the recession hit in 2009. Gieco, which didn’t respond to our numerous inquiries about its EV insurance policy, also didn’t respond to a question about why Bailey was chosen to give advice on the cars. Jeff Mikulina, executive director of Blue Planet Foundation, said that “it’s unclear if the author is referring to electric vehicles from this century or another century." Here’s Mikulina’s response to Bailey’s comments: — In Hawaii the benefit is clear; the average gasoline passenger vehicle will emit about 40% more greenhouse gas per mile than an electric vehicle. — From the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy: On the average grid mix and on a full-fuel-cycle basis, plug-in EVs today offer major reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to conventional gasoline-powered vehicles (see Table 1): http://aceee.org/blog/2013/06/getting-most-plug-electric-vehicles — As the share of electricity that comes from clean and renewable sources grows, so do the environmental benefits. For combustion engines to “solve environmental problems" they’d have to run on locally produced biofuels. 2) To the point about “battery technology is bad": — Batteries are rapidly becoming less costly. Before 2009, a 100-mile range electric battery cost $33,000. Today it costs about $17,000, and it is projected to drop to $10,000 by the end of 2015. http://energy.gov/articles/top-10-things-you-didn-t-know-about-electric-vehicles — Tesla just announced battery swap option that can replace battery faster and cheaper than filling a conventional tank of gas: http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/21/autos/tesla-battery-swap/index.html — Battery technology continues to advance: Oak Ridge National Lab recently tested new all-solid sulfur-based battery with four times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20130605-00 — [Fed] announced today that his 2014 budget increases funding for clean technology by 30 percent across all agencies: http://www.whitehouse.gov/share/climate-action-plan 3) To the point about “public in general is very leery": — According to Department of Energy: Currently there are 13 electric vehicle models on the market, and the number continues to rise. For model years 2013 and 2014, manufacturers are expected to debut at least 18 new plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles. They wouldn’t be manufacturing these models if there isn’t a demand. http://energy.gov/articles/top-10-things-you-didn-t-know-about-electric-vehicles — In February 2013, Nissan LEAF hit benchmark of 50,000 vehicles sold. (Bloomberg wants 1/3 of taxi fleet in NYC to be electric by 2020. He’s also calling for 10,000 EV car charging spots in the city by 2020.) ... All purchases subject to Hawaii and City and County of Honolulu General Excise Tax of 4.712%. [© 2010-2013 Peer News] For all EVLN posts use: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=413529&query=evln&sort=date Here are today's archive-only EV posts: EVLN: Electric Cars Beat ice Racers at Pikes Peak? EVLN: Not so Smart quirky EV marketing, a redesigned ForTwo in ~2015 EVLN: A shocking attack on the electric car (video) EVLN: Madrid's EV-Only-Use Bid to Host 2020 Olympic Games + EVLN: 'Noisy EV' campaign gets backing from the blind (video) {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Geico-Won-t-Insure-EVs-in-Hawaii-tp4663984.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
