Risk

The Other Loss

There was one large loss file in particular that had cast a pall over Holly’s day. Not that all of her files didn’t conspire to do that on a daily basis, but sometimes she hit a standout. The time of a loss is a time of stress, her Insurance Institute textbook had said, and back then she had thought this would be very exciting. That people would be in trouble, having suffered some trauma, and she would be able to help make it right. But it didn’t take long for the mundane world of data entry, phone calls, complaints and loss payments to take the shine off. “What’s a lost?” her six-year old Ryan would sometimes ask her if she talked about her work at home.

“Not ‘lost,’ loss,” she’d say. “It’s when something bad has happened, and people have lost something that costs money to replace.”

“And you help they find it?” her four-year old David might chime in.

She smiled at him. “No, I give them money to buy something new.”

“Wow! Can you give us some money?”

If only it were that easy. But her money came one paycheck at a time like everybody else’s. Her mother often asked her why those people didn’t give her a decent raise, and she would tell her about return on equity and downtrends in the market—the things her manager told her. But the truth was she didn’t care. It was money and a place to go every day and it kept her mind busy.

So this particular file, even though her pending was up over 200 and her voice mail generally numbered above 10, was the one she couldn’t get out of her head. It had seemed simple enough when her manager first assigned it that morning. Alisa was a 6-foot tall no-nonsense Jamaican woman who’d seen it all and could give you a look that said, “Don’t even start with me.” And no one did.

“Here’s a house fire we just got in by fax,” she said, handing her a yellow file. “Can you open a new claim and give them a call this afternoon?”

“Yes,” she said. She was picking up voice mail in one ear, listening to her boss with the other, and nodding at both.

Alisa nodded back and started to walk away. “Oh, yeah,” she said over her shoulder. “One of the insureds is deceased.”

“What?” said Holly, hanging up the phone, but her boss was already gone. She looked at the thin yellow file on her desk. Yellow for property. Red for auto, green for go. Blue for Mondays, black for… deceased. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them it was still there. She looked around at the pile of colored files on her desk, reading the names shown on several others, and finally opened the cover.

Couch caught fire in basement while husband asleep and died. Wife can be reached at phone # above, the broker had scrawled on the loss report.

The image of the couch on fire and the sleeping husband stuck with her for the rest of the day. It wasn’t a violent image. It was almost peaceful the way he was just sleeping there and she pictured the flames as the warm glow of a fireplace all around him. Sleeping like a log. She had tried to smile at this thought as she thought about leaving at just after 5:00.

She looked around for Alisa, didn’t see her, but sighed anyway, and dialed the number.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs. Bennett?”

“Yes.”

“Hi, it’s Holly Maynard calling from your insurance company.” She took a deep breath. “I was very sorry to hear of your loss.”

“My loss?”

She closed her eyes and gripped the receiver. “I’m sorry, the fire. Your husband.” Rubbed her temple with two fingers of her right hand.

“Oh.” There was silence on the line. “Thank-you. Only the man from the insurance… the broker, yes, told me you’d call about the loss details. About the basement.”

“Yes, I know it can be confusing. It’s a term we use.”

“I still can’t believe it happened.”

Holly picked up her pen and pushed the file over to her right. “I know how difficult this must be. Are you okay to talk a little bit about the fire?”

“Yes, I think so. It was two days ago. Two nights.”

“Okay. I’d like to send somebody out to see your basement. Would that be all right?”

“Yes. When?”

She looked at her watch, but couldn’t focus on the time. “His name is Jason and I’ll get him to give you a call tomorrow. Have you got somewhere to stay?”

“Yes, this is at… I’m at my sister’s right now. This is her number.”

“Okay, but if it becomes a problem, let me know, and we’ll put you up in a hotel. Keep any receipts from eating out and send them to me. Do you have my number?”

“Yes, my broker gave it to me.”

“Okay, well, my name is Holly. You call me if you have any questions.” Then she slipped into the routine. “Let me just explain quickly what’s going to happen. Jason will come and see you tomorrow. He’ll take a statement from you, and look around your basement.”

“A statement?”

“Yes, just tell him what happened.”

“Oh, okay.”

“We’ll get a clean-up crew in there, and a building contractor, if necessary. Jason will help you make a list of all the things that were burnt or smoke damaged, and we will replace those items for you.”

“Mmm hmm.” Her voice was barely audible.

“I’ll let you go now, Mrs. Bennett. And again, I’m very sorry.”

The phone went dead.

Holly wrote in the file, and then turned to the computer to set up the new claim. Then she called Jason, the field claims rep, and left a message on his cell phone. Called the Fire Marshall’s office and asked for the report to be faxed over. Made notes on the system regarding her conversation with the insured. Picked up her voice mail, which was already bulging. She hummed a tune to herself that she made up as she went along. Couldn’t remember any songs.

We will replace everything that was burned.

The drive over to her mother’s. Picking up the kids. The drive home. Requests for hot dogs for dinner. Hamburger Helper instead. Walking the dog in the park. Kids playing and then home to bed. Washing dishes. Quiet.

As she got into bed she noticed the room was already cold, which was odd, so she went to check the thermostat. It was supposed to turn itself up and down automatically, an electronic one. The last thing she needed was for the furnace to go out on her. She turned on the hall light and peered at the little readout window. One of the kids must have been playing with it and pressed the down arrow so that it went to the low setting at 7:00pm instead of 10:00pm. She adjusted the time and closed the flap.

It was one of those nights she couldn’t seem to be tired. At first she lay there and tried her breathing exercises to calm her mind, imagining each part of her body relaxing one by one. And then she switched to her Positive Thinking podcasts on her iPod, the soothing voice in her head repeating all those reasonable-sounding platitudes. She tried reading her book. Then she just gave up and stared at the ceiling. Let her mind wander where it wanted to go: to thoughts of the widow Bennett.