The Case of Dubious Draft

On a sun-drenched Saturday, I took my nephew Milo to the public library. He liked to listen to the storytellers read to groups of children, and I liked showing all the single moms in attendance that Ace is a kid-friendly man.

Inside the room, Milo raced to the front, where I noticed my insurance friend Cliff standing by the podium.

“Hey, Cliff. I didn’t know you volunteered at the library.”

He looked like a caged koala jones-ing for a eucalyptus fix. “Ace! The children need to know.”

“Know what?”

He didn’t answer, turning to the children instead. “Good afternoon, children. Do you like stories?”

“Yeah!” they yelled in sugar-fueled unison.

Cliff cleared his throat with thunderous frenzy and began. “I have an insured, a farmer named Jed, who reported an auto loss. His truck was parked at the farm on a day with high winds, but no storms. A bale feeder was blown into the side of the truck, denting and scratching the vehicle and knocking off the mirror. We turned the claim into the insurer as a comprehensive loss using windstorm as the cause of loss.”

With glazed doughnut eyes, the kids were losing interest faster than the women I met at a speed-dating dinner I attended last night. So I ran up and said, “Get a grip, Cliff. I like your tale, but these children expect a story with crazy characters and plot, so get with it.”

“Thanks, Ace. OK, kiddies, I received a fax from the evil adjuster, Queen Brattlebart, denying this claim as a comprehensive loss, saying that it should be paid as a collision loss because the cruel
insurer says a windstorm must have 60 mph to 70 mph documented wind speeds. Our investigation revealed documented wind speeds of up to 30 mph. These speeds do not meet the cruel insurer’s windstorm definition.”

My nephew Milo, a smart kid who liked hearing about his Uncle Ace’s hair-raising insurance stories, was hooked.

“What happens next?” he breathlessly asked.

“I called the evil adjuster back on the phone,” Cliff continued, “and explained that the ISO form shows that a windstorm is considered an other-than-collision loss and that they could not make up their own definition of what a windstorm was to determine whether to pay a loss under comprehensive or collision. The evil queen adjuster just laughed and would not budge. What do you think about that, children?”

“It’s an outrage!” I yelled, causing all the kids to turn toward me. “And I’ll tell you why.”

Why was Ace throwing such a tantrum? 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.