The Case of the Lingering Stench

With Valentine’s Day drawing near, I was in the florist shop buying a bouquet for my mother. I sauntered around the shop, sniffing at random blossoms. Usually I wasn’t the type to saunter. But I liked the idea of others watching me, imagining I was picking flowers for a hot girlfriend—even though I didn’t have a hot girlfriend, or even a hot dinner, waiting at home.

The gladiolas smelled nice, like rain on a Sunday afternoon; the carnations like an Irish meadow in the fall; and the tulips like urine from a large jungle cat.

I immediately deduced that Ode de Jungle Cat was not the flower’s scent—that odor came from cologne, and not the good kind that made women want to give you their real phone numbers.

The source of the odor turned the corner and glared at me, for that odor sprung from my old arch nemesis from the insurance academy, Brad Snidely. He wore a white suit that made his ultra-dark tan stand out as much as the décolletage of the surgically enhanced lady at his side.

“Insura, good to see you again. This is my fiancée, Delilah. She’s a bikini aerobics instructor,” he said as he glanced around the store. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Of course. I’m picking up four dozen red roses for Mom…Mona. Yeah, that’s the ticket. So how’s the insurance game, Brad?”

“I’ve done it, Ace. I figured out how a business can provide physical damage coverage on an employee-owned auto while being used by an employee on business.”

“And how’d you pull that one off, Snidely?”

“I traditionally put the CA 20 54 ‘Employee Hired Autos’ endorsement on my accounts. But when I was closely reviewing this endorsement again, my shrewd mind noticed the language states: ‘For Hired Auto Physical Damage Coverage, the following are deemed to be covered autos you own: 1. Any covered auto you lease, hire, rent or borrow.’”

“Yeah, standard language. What of it?”

“This made me wonder if I have Symbol 8 for Physical Damage coverage and the CA 20 54 attached, does the CA 20 54 supersede the portion of the definition of Symbol 8 that restricts the employee’s owned auto from this coverage? You see, the CA 20 54 does say ‘Any.’ So physical damage coverage can be provided on a primary basis to employee-owned autos while being used on company business. What do you think of that, Insura?”

“Brad,” I said, as I waved my hands before my face. “That idea smells as badly as you.”

Why was Ace raising a stink? 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.