The Case of the Double Vision

I volunteer at the National Institutes of Health as a guinea pig in clinical trials. They pump experimental drugs into me, and I tell them if my toes turn purple. I’m hoping they’ll name a cure after me, and doctors will someday say, “Give me a shot of Ace, stat!”

Usually the side effects from these shots are mild—sore arm, drowsiness, acute irritable bowel syndrome—but this morning I’d had a bad case of double vision ever since I put my contacts in, and I can only blame the shot I received yesterday.

With my eyes humming like a well-struck tuning fork, I tried to call my doctor, but the little numbers on my cell phone danced around like a swarm of angry bees. I needed help, and I needed it fast, so I stumbled out to the road to wait for a good Samaritan to stop.

Three minutes later an insurance man named Brad pulled over, saying, “You’re Ace Insura, aren’t you?”

I tried to look him straight, but my quivering eyes only pitched knuckleballs. “Yes I am. Can you help me call my doctor?”

He didn’t make a quick move to help, which either meant he was hard of hearing or he was checking out the situation like a snake outside a hen house.

“Ace, I’ll help, but only if you help me first with an insurance problem. Deal?”

I would have slugged him if he just stood still long enough. “Deal.”

“Alright, my client, this contractor, is the sole owner of two businesses. One is a construction company, while the other one is an excavating company. My client has separate policies now but wants to have one CGL/WC/BAP policy for both companies listing both as named insureds. I’m not so certain if this is a good idea, because a bad loss for one company could ruin the insurance for both. But my client really wants this. Do you know the best way to insure both under one policy? Are there any gaps in coverage of having one policy versus two?”

Some questions are hard to answer, like when a woman asks you if she looks fat in this size 24 muumuu. But there was something about Brad’s question I couldn’t pin down in my current predicament.

“Brad, give a second on this one. This double vision is making my head spin so hard my fillings are coming loose.”

What will Ace say once he can see straight? For help solving this mystery and to check your solution against Ace’s, click here.

Jonathan Hermann (hermannism@gmail.com is an IA contributing editor.