Risk

The Loss

Martin Porchnik could see Jason from Claims approaching the Underwriting area with a yellow file in his hand and a big smirk on his face. A chill went through Martin, as it always did. A yellow file meant a property claim to be paid, and although he would ask not for whom the bell tolled, he still prayed it didn’t toll for he.

“Good afternoon, ‘Underwear’ department. Whose day can I ruin today?” said Jason. “Anybody have a file for Ultimate Diecasting?”

Martin grimaced. He knew that name. Of all the shit files that landed in his lap, that one stuck out in his memory as one of the shittiest.

“Heads are going to roll over this one,” said Jason, looking around with an evil grin.

“Not one of mine,” said Darlene.

“It’s not me,” called Dave from his cubicle at the back.

“It’s me,” said Martin. Everybody looked at him and he shrugged his shoulders. What're ya gonna do?

“Is this the kind of crap you’re writing down here?” Jason parked his bulk next to Martin’s desk, leaning his elbow on the upper shelf. “No wonder I’m so busy paying out the big bucks. I need a dec page, underwriter boy.”

He was what might be called a big galoot. Tallish and stocky going on fat with dark curly hair and thick eyebrows that looked angry or at least sarcastic all the time and a kind of goatee that made him look devilish.

“I haven’t even issued the policy, yet,” Martin said, looking away from Jason's dark eyes and back down at the yellow file that spelled possible doom. Did he have to enjoy it so much?

“Well, what’s the hold up? Let’s get it in gear. Do I have to come down here and crack the whip on you people?”

“It just came in last week.” He dug through his pile of bound submissions waiting to be entered onto the computer.

“Well, that didn’t take long. What have you got for me, so I know how much I have to pay out here? Or did you want me to just give them a blank check?”

“We have a copy of their last year’s dec page from the prior carrier. We bound coverage on the same basis.” Well, he hadn’t, but his boss had. The decs, or policy declarations, which were a listing of the coverages and wordings included, had just landed in his lap, in fact. And right away he had to hand them over to Jason so he could pay the first claim. Delightful.

“Gee, thanks. I guess it’s something. Let me make a copy and I’ll be right back.”

“Can you leave me the claim file?”

“Sure. Read it and weep.” Jason passed him the file and then walked away to the mail room to make his photocopy.

“Thanks,” said Martin. He opened the file with a small feeling of self-satisfaction that he hoped wouldn't show on his face. He wasn't the one who had put them on the risk, so the blame wouldn't fully fall to him, come to that. It gave him a little get out of jail free card, but it was something he had to pretend he didn't think.

Most of what underwriters do in a day is consider risk. They read submissions of potential “risks,” which in his department were businesses they were being asked to insure, and they had to assess the likelihood of having to pay out money because of some misadventure that might befall each. This would be either a lawsuit or a fire or a flood, etc. If you included famine, you would have almost all four horsemen of the Apocalypse. War is excluded. So underwriters choose which businesses to insure and how much money to charge so that, on average, a certain class of business would make money for the company. The general principal of insurance is that the premiums of the many would pay for the losses of the few. So they wrote up business for a whole lot of machine shops across Canada and only a few, like Ultimate Diecasting, would have a claim, and it should all even out and whatever was left over minus expenses was profit. If he did his job right.