As many of you know, my wife and I had a “water incident” in our condo unit. For years, we’ve enjoyed ice (to chill our martinis) dispensed from the automatic ice maker in our fridge. But a few months ago, while we were on a Caribbean Cruise (drinking mojitos on our deck chairs) the little plastic tube that supplies water to the fridge sprung a leak. We returned home to buckling floor boards and a general mustiness that permeated the unit. This state of ruination left us distraught, so much so that my wife felt an immediate need for a martini which, sadly, I couldn’t satisfy because our ice was stale and we had no means to make fresh ice. Instead, I phoned our insurance agent and explained the situation: we would need to make a claim on our policy.
The agent said he was sorry to hear of our distress and would do his utmost to ensure that everything went smoothly for us.
I found his concern touching.
All he needed from us, he said, was our original Certificate of Insurance.
That would be impossible, I explained. Before leaving on holiday, I had stacked all our important documents on the floor beside the fridge. When we returned, the documents were sopping and had transformed into a ball of pulpy mush. It would be impossible to produce our original Certificate of Insurance.
Well then, said the agent, that would be a problem.
Not insurmountable, I hope.
I’m afraid without an original Certificate of Insurance, we can’t process your claim.
I was taken aback. We had been loyal customers for years, paying thousands of dollars in premiums. How could they deny our claim—not even our claim, but the right to make our claim—based on what was, after all, a simple technicality?
I ranted and blustered. For his part, the insurance agent kept cool, lacing his talk with the professional words of his trade, words like deductible and actuary. But as we spoke, a solution appeared to me. I remembered reading a term of the insurance policy which stated that, in the event of loss, the insurer was obliged to place us, the insured, in our pre-loss condition. In these circumstances, our pre-loss condition included not only the repair of our damaged floor, but also the restoration of our original Certificate of Insurance.
I thought this was a clever argument, but the insurance agent was quick to respond in all his smarmy professionalism. He said that while my argument seemed persuasive—and he emphasized the word seemed to give it an ironic force—nevertheless, on reviewing our history of transactions with the Insurance Company, he had no choice but to deny the claim because we had failed to purchase the Tautology Rider.