Insurance tailored for churchgoers

When Pastor Jim Goforth’s Pontiac Aztec was hit by a teenage driver in a church parking lot a couple of years ago, his insurance company waived his $500 deductible.

The pastor of New Life Baptist Church in Florissant, Mo., was covered by GuideOne Insurance, which has tailored its FaithGuard line of coverage to churchgoers.

“It’s kind of no-brainer,” Goforth said of his decision to go with FaithGuard. “Basically it lets you know that this is a company that is concerned about the same things that you’re concerned about.”

Two years ago, GuideOne Insurance, which started in 1958 by providing life insurance for nondrinkers, began testing a series of free benefits for its churchgoing customers to supplement standard coverage.

In addition to waiving the deductible on accidents driving to or from a church service, the Iowa-based company doubles medical limits when a customer is ferrying a nonrelative to a worship event.

It also pays up to $750 of tithes and other church donations if an insured customer loses income due to a disability caused by an accident in an automobile or home.

Customers have filed claims when they’ve hit a deer on the way from a church council meeting or when they’ve returned to find hail damage on their car in a church parking lot.

GuideOne offers the FaithGuard product line in 19 states, including Washington.

This case of religious niche marketing follows the trend of Bibles geared for everyone from golfers to teens, and businesses like Christian dating services and Christian accounting firms.

Jim Wallace, the president and CEO of the company, says he views the churchgoing public as an “underserved market” for insurance.

“We’ve already had at least a couple of hundred claims,” Wallace says. “You’d be surprised how many fender benders happen in the church parking lot or going to and from church.”

Wallace said the company has about $75 million in premiums from 65,000 FaithGuard policies. That accounts for about half its personal home and auto premiums, which make up about one-third its overall business.

Lynn Schofield Clark, editor of the book “Religion, Media and the Marketplace,” said FaithGuard’s idea is reminiscent of advertising that has appeared for decades in local newspapers, in which small business owners identify their support of Christianity with a fish symbol or Bible verse.

“If you’re a Christian and you see that symbol, then you would be able to identify that group,” says Clark, a University of Denver assistant professor whose book was published in April. “I think that’s what the insurance company seems to be doing on a much broader scale.”

But she says there’s always the risk of offending non-Christians while simultaneously targeting a specific niche of customers.

Mara Einstein, author of the new book, “Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age,” says car insurance aimed at churchgoers is one more “unique selling proposition” that aims to encourage customers to choose one company over another.

“What you want to do with any product and anything in terms of marketing is you want to get people where they are,” says Einstein, an associate professor of media studies at Queens College in New York.

“It’s a necessary evil in today’s culture, in order to be able to be heard over the noise of the culture.”