Insurance - A beautiful Thing
Insurance is a beautiful thing. You see, if insurance is about anything, it is about money. YOU pay money to buy it, if you have a claim, YOU expect to get money to pay the claim. And in America, you are your money. How you use it, what you buy with it demonstrates your attitude towards it. Your attitude toward money, reveals your soul, a beautiful thing.
I started as a captive agent. I could only write insurance for one company—Prudential. My loyalty, as defined by insurance law, was to my company. I soon left Prudential, who would want to stay captured anyway? I joined a brokerage where we had access to many carriers,and where I was Free to find the best ones for my clients. As defined by the insurance code, my loyalty was now to my clients. Ever wonder about that during your business day, to whom is your loyalty when you practice your craft?
For the first year of my career, none of my clients had a claim. I felt like I was Sir Galahad; that the purity of my heart was encasing my clients in a protective coating. Purity of heart is important when you are dealing with money, beautiful money.
However, one day, I get a call from a friend and client, Guido. I’d written auto insurance for him, his wife, his son, and lastly his daughter, a sixteen-year old, inexperienced driver, whom I called Principessa, little Princess, because he adored her although she consistently tried his patience as she carelessly navigated the difficult journey through puberty. I never judged him for that. I adored my daughters as they navigated that same journey. And I never referred to his daughter as Principessa to his face.
“What’s up, Guido?”
“No big deal…..Just kissed the fender. But I thought I better call you.” There was a lot of misdirection and missing information in his introduction.
“Anybody hurt?” Yes, you know me, call me Mr. Empathy! Sure, I’m concerned if anyone was hurt. But in auto insurance you are always concerned about casualties. The big claims are about bodily injury, not damage to the car.
“Oh, no, we’re all OK.” I am glad. It takes a battery of questions to find out he wasn’t driving. Principessa was! She rear-ended the car in front of her. When I persist in trying to find out how it happened, Guido blurts out the truth,
“It wasn’t her fault. It was the flip-flop!”
Somehow, Principessa, in her infinite prudence, was driving with flip-flops. “Are you flippin’ kidding me?” I want to blurt out. If I focus on the details, I will stay composed. Her flip-flop became stuck under the accelerator when she went to put her foot on the brake as she and the car in front of her came to a stop light. So, truth be told, she actually sped up before hitting the car in front of her. I am sure none of you have ever driven wearing flip-flops.
I assure Guido that he and Principessa are covered, I will immediately call in the claim to the adjustor, and the carrier will be in touch and take care of everything. That is the Beauty of the Concept of Insurance. If you have a broker who is pure of heart, the insurance will take care of everything. The Golden Rule of insurance is to indemnify—to make the injured people and the damaged property whole again. As she, he and it was before the accident. IN DEMIFY—to un hurt, to un damage. Turn time back. {Crumple paper, uncrumple paper.} Hmmmm.
The claim goes well. My company does it all. Pays the body shop for Guido’s car repair. Pays the body shop for the vehicle that Principessa crumpled. $1800 for Guido’s car, $3200 for the other driver’s car. The other car was a lot nicer than the car Guido got for his daughter. Guido paid $1800 per year for his family’s auto insurance. You doing the math? The carrier is already down $3200.
The claim continues to go well. My company does it all. They have set aside One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars, this was in 1990’s dollars, because the impact of the collision, remember Principessa accelerated into the car in front of her, exacerbated the pre-existing back problem of the other driver, a little old lady. EX-ACERBATE mean to Make Worse, to Aggravate. The woman eventually does have a laminectomy and spinal fusion which eats up the entire amount of the $150,000. Yes, the carrier is down $153,200.
As I said the claim went well. But one day, months later, I get a second call from my friend. He is hotter than a lizard perching on the metal dome of the Capitol at the peak of the afternoon heat in August. My fingers and ears feel the heat. “I am pissed. I’ve been blind-sided. This isn’t fair.” Guido’s insurance premium was increased from $1800 to $2400 per year. That is because the teenager caused an accident with bodily injury and is still driving. Her Motor Vehicle Record now has 2 penalty points for an at-fault accident with bodily injury.
I explain why the rates were increased. The two points. The size of the bodily injury claim. But all Guido knows is that I should have done better. That he had put his trust in me, and that I let him down. And that it wasn’t even Principessa’s fault, it was the flip-flop. “Well, you Guido, are a flippin’ idiot. Your daughter causes an accident but I’m at fault. What reality are you living in.” I do not think that out loud. Even when Guido tells me that as a punishment for the shoddy treatment he received he is going to another company that has a lower premium and will treat him more fairly, I wish him well.
I thought I’d done a good job. Guido and Principessa never had to meet the little old lady they clobbered! They never had to go to court to adjudicate the claim! Guido didn’t have to take $150,000 out of his 401K or home equity to pay the medical bills. That’s the beauty of insurance. It buys you out of the discomfort of facing the damage you’ve done. I thought he’d kneel before me and kiss my ring?
In time, I came to understand. Guido wanted me to FIX ALL this by making it disappear with no cost to him. Isn’t that what he pays the insurance premium for? That is what he thought I could do. He wanted me to be Fixer and change what happened…..as if the idiot wearing the flip-flops had been wearing ballerina shoes instead and pirouetted her way around the car in front of her.
It wasn’t that Guido was someone who would act with IM-PUNITY, without punishment for having done something wrong, like an at-fault accident, that caused another person to have major surgery. He just really didn’t want to know the details about it. And Guido was just being loyal to his family. He was just as pure of heart as I was. I get that.
But I told him, the truth. Then, he knew it and had to hide it from his daughter or tell her that she was no longer immaculate. I had abandoned my loyalty to my client, for loyalty to the truth of the matter. For that, I needed to be punished.