Great actors have starred in films about the insurance world, such as Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner in the film “The Killers” (1946). In this movie, two hired murderers kill an employee of a fuel station and a detective of an insurance company must investigate the crime.
Also, great directors have focused on insurance sector. Billy Wilder, the winner of two Oscars as director and three as scriptwriter, used the insurance world in the plot of three of his films: “Double Indemnity” (1944), “The Apartment” (1960), starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley McLaine; and “The Fortune Cookie” (1966), with Lemmon and Walter Matthau.
The master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, also saw a gold mine for his stories set in the insurance sector. In the film, “To catch a thief” (1955), John Robie (Cary Grant), an ex-thief, is suspected of committing various jewelry thefts. John convinces an insurance employee that he is not guilty and he commits himself to catch the real thief. The insurance sector appears as well in the Hitchcock’s film “The wrong man” (1956).
Genre: suspense, comedy, drama and animation
The suspense genre has been recurrent in the movies based on the insurance world. Some examples are: “Entrapment” (1999), “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1999) and “Flawless” (2007), starring Michael Caine and Demi Moore.
The insurance world appears in comedies as well. “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion” (2001) of Woody Allen is an example. It tells the story of CW Briggs (Allen), who is considered the best investigator of an insurance company of New York, and Betty (Helen Hunt), a ruthless executive who wants to optimize resources of the company. One night,they go out with some friends to a show where they are hypnotized. From this moment, some mysterious thefts are carried out at the insurance company.
Another example is the comedy film “Along came Polly” (2004), where the main character (Ben Stiller) works in the risks department of an insurance company. The same happens in “The Truman Show” (1998): Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is an insurance agent who doesn’t know that his life is being broadcasted on television since he was born.
The drama genre has focused on insurance as well. In the film “The Rainmaker” (1997), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and based on the particularities of the North American healthcare system, two lawyers want to prove the culpability of an insurance company that denied marrow transplantation to a boy that finally died.
The insurance world appears in suspense, comedy, drama and also in animated films. In the Disney film “The Incredibles” (2004), the main character works in an insurance company.
Products: life and health insurances, guarantees against robberies and new insurance products
Life and health insurances are a recurrent subject in films. They appear in the tragicomedy “Bulworth” (1998), starring Warren Beatty, or in the film “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” (2007), with Adam Sandler.
Also, theft coverage appears frequently in movies. “Flawless” and “The Thomas Crown Affair” are an example.
But these products are not the only range of products that we can see in the films. In “Proof of Life” (2000), starred by Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan, an insurance coverage for kidnapping is the key in the plot. And in the film “The Fortune Cookie” the liability insurance is present in the storyline.
Another type of product appears in the film “The Wreck of the Mary Deare” (1959). The captain of a merchant ship (Gary Cooper) decides to stay aboard his sinking ship to prove that the ship has been sabotaged and get the compensation from their cargo insurance.
Some movies go beyond and invent new products. The science fiction film “The Island” (2005), with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, is set in the year 2019, in a world where people can buy life insurance as a human clone.
The image of the insurance: the false attraction of fraud and the fallacy of the boring professional
Fraud plays an important role in movies, as we can see in the film“Double Indemnity”. The stories about insurance fraud may be very attractive in the cinema, but in real life this crime has serious consequences. Fraud is counter-productive not only for insurance companies, but for the entire society and the honest clients, because after all, they have to pay higher premiums due to fraudsters.
In many films, we can also see insurance professionals. Sometimes, the image of these professionals is seen as something boring (“The Incredibles”), but that is not true. Insurance professionals are people with vast knowledge of different sectors. They work in order to protect people and their goods, and they offer everything from traditional products, such as car insurance or home insurance, to specific products for rural houses or wine cellars. Allianz Group works on issues as diverse as microinsurance in India or protection for music festivals. Moreover, in Allianz Group you can find a wide range of roles: actuaries, risk analysts, lawyers, claims experts, but also geophysicists, meteorologists, vets and vintners, among many others.
Allianz Group and the cinema
Allianz Group, through its subsidiary Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, has been the major insurance company of the great films of Hollywood for over 90 years. It insures every type of movie: from independent films to blockbusters. Fireman’s Fund tries to balance the needs of producers, studios and the artists ensuring that the films are made in a secure way, on time and respecting the budget.It can insure the crew, film sets, sets and costumes, film crews and funding, among other issues.
In Spain, Allianz Seguros also offers different insurance solutions to cinema industry: protection for movie theatres, cargo insurance for film crews, sound or film negatives.
