I’ve been meaning to comment about this TV ad for Allstate insurance, which enraged me the first time I saw it. Allstate knows better (the insurance business deals with probability and statistics) and they knew this was a lie when they put the ad together:

In the ad, actor Dennis Haysbert says:

“A once-in-500-year storm should happen once every 500 years, right? The fact is, there have been 26 in the last decade.”

Setting aside the fact that we don’t have enough statistics to say anything meaningful about what happens over 500 years (hydrologists prefer to stick to 100 years as justified when talking about rare events), Allstate knows very well that such statistics refer to the repeat period for the same location… not for (say) the whole United States. It is not unusual for once-in-100 year weather events to occur more than once, maybe several times, each year somewhere in the U.S.

I consider this false advertising because Allstate knows better, and is purposely misleading the public to make more money.