Claims, Stains and Octogenarians

On my first day in my new job, I handled this claim.

'My husband was in the bathroom when he fell and banged his head on the cistern, which cracked, pouring water over the floor. I rushed to help him, and stepped on some cracked porcelain. I did not notice this until I had walked into the bedroom, and my foot had bled on the hall and bedroom carpet. '

Now despite what this blog may make you believe, with its sparkling, acerbic wit and Oscar Winning mood swings, I’m actually quite sensitive. Really! Try tickling me!

When I read the claim I felt like I was in that bathroom. It was my boyfriend on the floor, me in shock, trying to stop the water, trying to help him, running to the bedroom for the phone, my heart racing, the blood spurting from my foot unnoticed as a hero ignores his mortal wound until his damsel is saved.

And besides, they were old, sweet people. They needed my help. They wouldn’t lie to me.

My senior looked over my shoulder. 'Yeah right.' he said, 'like you wouldn't notice you had a bloody big piece of porcelain in your foot.'


Now you may think the odds of someone faking this are somewhat slim.

'Forsooth Roger, I find myself rather tired of one's bedroom carpet.'
'Tis true Maria. I believe, also, that the lavatory be naff.’
‘Rather naff indeed.'
‘You know, one believes we can purge of the twain with one stone.'
'Mercy, no?'
'Verily, with naught but a head-shaped hammer and a vile of blood. Hurry now, bring me forth a knife and one's Home Policy Booklet.'

But the more claims I've handled the more I can imagine it. In the last month I’ve had people claim their stolen 18 year old Television was HD ready, their burnt down council flat was full of priceless artworks, and their defrosted freezer was stocked with Caviar and Salmon. Every day someone is trying to screw the company out of money. And my job isn’t to help people as you may expect. My job is to work out who is lying.

After all, who knows how many people sit at home every night, plotting to commit insurance fraud.

'Geeze Brian, what we going to do tonight then?'
'The same thing we do every night Peaches, try to defraud our Insurance.'

But maybe you think that I'm being too cynical about this. Maybe you think that deep down Human Beings are honest, kind people.

Well my naive friends (who I must come 'visit' one day) let me give you one more example.

A few days ago I was called up by a lovely, old Gentleman, the kind who hands out sweets in the bus queue. With a wonderful chortle he told me that his wife had been saving up £2 coins. But the purse she was saving them in had 'gone missing.' This sounded perfectly reasonable. Old people often save up change at home, it keeps the queues in the bank short, and the glass jars market afloat. They are also famous for losing things: normally their memory.

Then I asked how much money was in the purse.
‘About £800,’ he said.

For those who don't know, a £2 coin is roughly the size of a quarter, 1 1/8" in diameter and 1/8" in height. It is the largest coin in the English currency. Yet his wife apparently had 400 of them in her purse. Call me cynical if you must (in fact I rather enjoy it) but I find that hard to believe.

To give some idea of scale, a pile of 300 £2 coins would reach up past my waist. Any purse containing them would have a volume of over 40 cubic inches and weigh over 8lb. It’s not the kind of thing you take with you when you go go to Waitrose to buy a new glass jar. Losing something like that would take a highly concentrated effort, detailed planning and, at their age, a forklift truck.

And so he's cheating us, claiming for more than he lost just like everyone else who ever made an insurance claim, including me.

And yet, knowing that he has cheated us, I’ll pay him the money. I'll sign the cheque and move onto the next liar, cheater or master criminal.

Because that, after all, is my job.

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