Thanksgiving’s end settles all arguments about whether or not we’re in the holiday season.
The turkey’s carved and eaten. The Cowboys, Steelers and Lions are all done playing. That mom chatting everyone up in the Wal-Mart line is now elbowing you in the temple for a PS4.
Yes, it’s definitely those happy holidays again.
Even car insurers know it, and are joining in on the holiday spirit with giveaways, donations and cheery charity that’ll warm any heart.
One Kentucky mother unwrapped a sweet holiday surprise this week after Progressive pulled the cover off of a recycled 2012 Hyundai Elantra.
After two months of getting its crash damage fixed on at Oxmoor Auto Collision Center, the vehicle went to Stephanie Sinkfield and her 10-year-old daughter.
The free gift will be a big help to the Sinkfields, which WDRB News said was a family “in desperate need of a car.”
Sinkfield herself said her previous 12-year-old car “had been through a lot.”
Progressive even threw in one heck of a stocking stuffer: Sinkfield won’t have to buy car insurance on the ride for a whole year.
The holiday season is also sparking the spirit of car giveaways at Allstate, which said this week that it’s partnering with Sterling Autobody Centers to restore 18 cars this year and provide them to needy families.
Allstate’s 18-vehicle throw-in adds to what is now a 160-car total that the car insurer has donated to the Recycled Rides program over the last six years.
So if you feel a little guilty about totally wasting your sweet car by taking that corner way too fast, know that someday it could be restored to pristine condition for another driver in need.
Sterling Autobody Centers president Nick Notte said in an Allstate statement that many of us more-fortunate folk have reliable transportation but “take [it] for granted.”
“We are proud to offer our time and resources to transform lives and touch families and organizations across the country,” he said. “While the gift of a vehicle provides a practical means of transportation, what it really provides is hope.”
While we’re cleaning our Thanksgiving plates, a lot of residents in the Midwestern U.S. will be in the middle of another kind of cleanup.
A spate of tornadoes and thunderstorms struck several states earlier this month, causing massive amounts of damage and several deaths.
But Illinois residents left to clean up their wrecked homes and vehicles won’t be alone.
The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) said this week that it pitched in for a donation drive with the Chicago Cubs marked for residents in Peoria, Ill.
Jeffrey Junkas, a PCI regional manager, said in a statement that the national trade organization wanted to show that, “in times like this, the insurance industry plays an integral role in restoring communities.”
Charity from insurance companies is in addition to the work they are already doing in impacted communities, where Junkas said that claims adjusters “are in the field now assessing damage, cutting checks, and working to support their customers, friends, neighbors and, in some cases, co-workers who also experienced the destruction.”
PCI isn’t the only piece of the industry that is doing good work in devastated communities. The disaster kicked off fast mobilization industrywide, with teams of adjusters and assessors blanketing parts of the Midwest to help policyholders get back on their feet.
