Policy is the Best Honesty | September 2001 Lighter Side of Life

The Lighter Side of Life: Policy Is the Best Honesty

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Arthur Koplin

Being an insurance agent sometimes means having thick skin.

The totally bored-looking gentleman sitting behind the large desk suddenly sprang to life. Jumping to his feet and leaning across his desk, he yelled, "Insurance people are all a bunch of crooks!" right into the faces of the three insurance men seated before him.

Totally caught off guard, the three of us just sat there, quietly staring into the face of the highly agitated plant manager.

"Insurance people are a bunch of crooks!" the plant manager fired another salvo at his captive targets.
My underwriting manager, Mr. Brevitas, beat him to the tongue trigger. "The situation is that state law requires a business of this size to carry workers' compensation insurance coverage on its employees. We can provide that coverage for you so you meet your legal as well as moral obligations. Why don't you sit down and let us finish our presentation."

More silence. Then just as suddenly as the plant manager had sprung up, he plopped down heavily into his chair. "All right, go on." And we finished our presentation.

The bleak, early spring countryside seemed to mirror our mood as Mr. Brevitas and I drove back to the office.

"How do you feel about being called a crook?" Mr. Brevitas suddenly broke the silence.It had hurt, in fact, but I wasn't going to admit that outright to Mr. Brevitas. "I'm okay," I answered, not convincingly.
"Well," Mr. Brevitas said, as if reading my real thoughts and feelings, "If you are going to be in the insurance business, you're going to hear statements like that sometimes. You might call it an underwriter's occupational hazard. You're going to have to learn to cope with them."

"Yes, sir." I knew he was not finished talking."There're two ways to keep your perspective," Mr. Brevitas continued. "First, make it a firm personal policy to always be honest, and then be confident in yourself that you are honest. If you know you're honest, never let anyone convince you that you're not."

"Yes, sir." I was really appreciating Mr. Brevitas' openness.

"Second, keep your own vision clear of what this business is really about," he continued. "Insurance isn't mainly about paying for a cracked windshield or a cut finger. It's really about walking up to a widow with three children, whose husband has just been killed on the job, and handing her a check for $500,000 so she can raise and educate her children. It's about walking up to a business owner standing among the burned-out rubble of his business and handing him a check for $5 million. Do you think those emotionally and financially hurting people would call insurance people crooks?"

"No, sir!" I answered emphatically.

A few weeks later, the late spring sunshine was pouring in through the office windows near my desk. The ringing phone broke into my airy spring musings, "Underwriting, Arthur speaking."

"Hello, Arthur. This is Allen Anttlers from the Alluvium Agency. I've got some really interesting news for you."

"Hello, Allen. I don't think we've spoken since we were told we were crooks by that loud plant manager. What's the news?"

"So you remember our friendly plant manager?" Allen chuckled. "The rumbling rumor mill has it that he's left the country and may be somewhere in the Caribbean or South America or the South Pacific."
"Why should I care that the guy's on vacation?" I shot back.

"No, no, Arthur. Not vacation. The story is that the plant manager allegedly had a scheme going and has been ripping off his company. He is suspected of setting up bank accounts under false names, all belonging to himself, in various banks around the state. They were supposed to be for buyers who were shipping raw materials to the plant for processing. It looks like he cleaned out all of the accounts and took himself and the cash to a place where U.S. law can't reach him."

"So let me get this clear, Allen. The plant manager stood there looking the three of us in the eye and called us crooks, and now is suspected of ripping off thousands of dollars from his company?"

"Not thousands, Arthur. I hear it could be tens of thousands of dollars. But yes, we were being called crooks by possibly the biggest crook this county has ever seen."

After our conversation, I thought about how strange life seems to be sometimes. Mr. Brevitas entered the area, heading for his office. I jumped up and was right on his heels as he went through his office door. "Mr. Brevitas, Allen Anttlers from Alluvium Agency just called, and have I got something to tell you!"

This is an excerpt from The Unleashed Underwriter by Arthur Koplin, who was a commercial insurance underwriter for 22 years. He can be reached by telephone at 763-535-7079 or by email at the.ace@acewordpublishing.com

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