My insurance adjuster is now on speed dial
I seem to be developing a closer relationship with my insurance adjuster than either of us anticipated. In fact, we’re on the phone with each other quite a bit these days.
As you may recall, my truck recently got a new (and inscrutable) stereo system. This is because someone relieved me of my old one because he did not understand the rules about private ownership of movable property. Or maybe I have it backwards, and I’m the one who doesn’t understand that if it isn’t nailed down, ownership is up for grabs.
Anyway, my insurance company was on the job PDQ. Within a day I had a new window. Two days after that, a radio. It couldn’t have gone smoother, and the adjuster, a woman we’ll call Joanne, since that’s her name, was great to work with. All in all, excepting what caused it all to begin with, I’d call it a nice experience.
Along came last Thursday.
There I was, driving to work, alone in my truck, listening to my new stereo, with my new window securely rolled up. I was in the left curb lane of a four-lane, one-way street. Ahead, in the next lane to my right was one of those smallish cars, those Hondas or Toyotas or Fords or Chevies. They’re really getting difficult to tell apart these days. They all have the same basic shape, sort of like a soap bubble, and they all seem to come in the same shade of gray.
Anyway, as we headed west, the person driving the 2007 Indistinct Soap Bubble Car saw to her left something she had evidently been looking for: A parking lot.
Excited, I guess, at her good fortune, she whipped her little Everycar toward the lot entrance. Sans signal. And I am pretty sure sans looking in the mirror, too, or she would have seen that it was pretty much impossible, seeing as I was close to occupying the space she needed to go through to get to the lot.
I stood on the clutch and brakes, cranked the wheel and whammo: My first collision with another vehicle in 40 years of driving.
The other driver, a kid, was out of her car immediately, apologizing. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t signal.” I was so disarmed I forgot to ask if she had even looked.
Two hours later I was filling in an online accident claim, and a few hours after that, who should call but my pal Joanne. We exchanged a little small talk, recorded my version of the events, went over how much rental car my policy will provide (think go-kart) and started the ball rolling on getting the truck fixed. Again. And Joanne couldn’t have been nicer about it. Again.
And then, just before we hung up, I did something I’ve never done with an insurance adjuster:
I put her on speed dial.
The way my luck is running, I think of it as insurance.
