General Insurance

Every year as the fourth of July nears, Mike Rowe, State Auto Insurance Co. recalls an auto claim he handled a few years ago. The case involves an insured infatuated with fireworks. He loved them so much he spent a couple thousand dollars a year to shoot them off in his field. One year, the insured loaded the back of his truck with fireworks and began making his way home when he decided to smoke a cigarette. Upon finishing, he tossed the end of the cigarette out the window, but wind blew the butt into the truck bed igniting the fireworks. The truck sustained damage, Rowe however did not indicate whether the driver was injured.

Paul Clark, recalled a situation involving a company paying an annuity to an individual in India. A fingerprint found on the back of each check endorsed them. One day, an audit revealed the check recipient had lived well passed the average life span, triggering an investigation. To the investigators’ dismay, the annuity recipient had long since died. The family cut the index finger off the deceased and kept it conveniently in a jar to endorse the checks to keep them coming.

Sandi Quezada of Chino Hills, Calif. recalled an applicant suffering from back pain who became pregnant. The client filed a claim on the grounds the anti-inflammatory agent in her pain medication neutralized her birth control, resulting in the pregnancy. She hired an attorney and asked for all prenatal visits and delivery charges paid in full, along with daycare services and child support until the age of 18.

Subsequently all she got was a little bundle of joy by which to pass on her preeminent ethical dignity.

Retired claims manager for the now defunct General Rent-a-Car in South Florida, Jay Bach, recalled a claim from the late 1980s where a driver slid into a wall killing the passenger. Apparently the driver and passenger worked for the FBI, investigating local police. The mother of the deceased passenger’s son sued, but the FBI and local police refused to cooperate. The rental company’s investigation team discovered the car had even been bugged. Bach said his team’s investigations lead from South Florida to the Caribbean Islands, but never uncovered the details of the accident. He said the discovery documents were blacked out by the FBI. Despite a local judge in the case apparently expressing anger at the Bureau’s “deliberate attempt to thwart the truth,” the case settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Bach said the son of the deceased, while riding his bike the day of the accident, witnessed the crash, but didn’t know his father was in the car and had passed.

A homeowners customer once requested coverage from Reiner Maurer, vice president, personal lines, United States Liability Insurance Group to pay for the loss of his stolen dentures. Confounded by the idea of someone stealing another person’s dentures, Maurer investigated further. He learned that not only had the insured witnessed the theft, but failed to file a police report. The crime occurred on the beach in Atlantic City where the insured vacationed. The insured sneezed to such a degree that he blew his dentures out of his mouth and onto the sand, triggering a hungry seagull to snatch it up, thinking it to be food. Maurer ultimately declined the claim and suggested the insured consider a products liability claim against the adhesive cream company.

Claims Journal received a strange claim submission reflecting a kitchen-fire claim. While home-fires commonly initiate claims, the way this particular fire started might be unusual. The insureds apparently moved a wall mirror into their kitchen where they mounted it on an east wall. Then, after the insureds left for the market, the sun shifted and the mirror began reflecting sunlight onto a fake plant located on the other side of the kitchen, igniting it. The fire quickly spread, causing significant damage. The homeowner carrier paid for the losses.

Peter Crosa of Atlanta, Ga. received an assignment for lightning damage to an insured’s ceiling and roof. While lightning stikes on homes in Florida occur with relative regularity, what he found resembled a science fiction movie set. Two oblong holes, about 6 inches in diameter, burnt clean through the roof, ceiling, floors, framing and all with no subsequent debris. Ever play with a magnifying glass when you were a kid?

The scene conjured images of space aliens with lasers, but Crosa settled with the insured on the basis of lightning damage.