There have been a few instances of insurance agents being portrayed in Hollywood over the years. Who can forget the easily-persuaded insurance agent Walter Neff, played by Fred MacMurray, in the movie “Double Indemnity”? And Ned Ryerson was the lovable, pesky insurance agent in “Groundhog Day” (the fur lining on the outside of his coat was more than memorable). Yet in most Hollywood movies, insurance agents have been mostly in the background.
However in the spring, I began receiving a number of emails from IIABA members following the release of the movie “Cedar Rapids.” I decided to invest $2 to rent the DVD since the movie’s protagonist is an insurance agent. First, I need to make a couple of disclaimers: I’m not a professional movie critic. In fact, I’m not sure I’m an amateur movie critic. Second, my movie viewing would be deemed to be anachronistic by most standards—my favorite movie stars are people like Van Heflin and Betty Davis. But, Hollywood does not select insurance agents as central characters very often, and I was curious to see the context in which an insurance agent would be portrayed.
In the movie, main character Tim Lippe (played by Ed Helms) is a rather naïve, sensitive insurance agent. He’s sent to an important insurance convention gathering in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to represent his agency, the fictional Brown Valley, WI. Lippe lost his father as a boy and then his mother as a teenager and apparently is not very worldly; traveling on an airplane and staying at a hotel with a pool is a significant life event. Without giving too much away about the movie (spoiler alert—don’t read on if you want to rent the movie), it’s important to note that Hollywood loves morally ambivalent characters—people who are ethically challenged in many regards but ultimately make the correct decision at the end of the movie. (And in this movie, there is a lot that seems farfetched, with the seemingly straight arrow protagonist within two days ending up having a tryst with another married agent attending the convention, ingesting drugs with a prostitute that he met and paying a bribe to win an insurance award.)
But there is one redeeming aspect of the movie that makes it worthwhile—when Lippe is asked why he became an insurance agent. He talks about his father’s death and when how the river in front of them once flooded, and how in each case it was insurance agents who cared and helped the people affected by the tragedy. It is interesting that even in jaded Hollywood, some screenwriter was able to interject the humanity of what insurance agents do. I don’t recommend “Cedar Rapids” as a family movie or as the best public relations efforts on behalf of agents. Yet, in its own morally ambivalent way, it does show how agents serve the public and how many people appreciate their agent. That’s better than telling someone that if they have 15 minutes they can save 15% on their auto insurance.
Dave Evans (dave.evans@iiaba.net) is a certified financial planner and an IA l-h contributing editor.
