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    Re: Thanks Focus Archived Message

    Posted by Ken Waldron on August 3, 2023, 7:14 pm, in reply to "Thanks Focus"

    That's a very insightful modern parable and just shows how f#cked we are by layers and layers of financialisation.

    Yes...thanks to Craig Murray for that.

    We have only made one house insurance claim in twenty or thirty years when we woke up one snowy morning to the sound of water dripping from the loft hatch in the bedroom end of the house where there are no pipes. Lo and behold on opening the hatch to investigate the source I pointed the torch in... to find the entire roof area covered in several inches of snow: as if the winter queen had taken residence overnight in our loft.

    I recalled the night before that we had an incredibly strong wind blowing from the south which had actually lifted the tiles and had them clacking: apparently allowing this exceptionally fine snow to blow under and through the gaps in the old sarking boards.

    Luckily I took photos of this interior "winter landscape" before the two of us spent the next four hours shoveling snow into Ikea bags before it melted and damaged all the ceilings. Non the less the insulation was pretty well destroyed and we made a claim for it.
    After some delay the insurers informed me they would send a "loss adjuster" around...

    Nice enough fellow...but he clearly didn't actually believe this tall tale we spun him until I asked him if he would like to see the photos.

    On seeing these his eyes opened wide and he shook his head back and forth with a smile..."Amazing. OK...let me be totally honest with you " he said. " I'm actually not an adjuster at all but an insurance fraud expert who was sent here because your report sounded so bizarre it couldn't possibly be true...but as you show here it did actually happen: no doubt about it. Clearly I'm going to recommend your insurers pay your claim out fully, but...could I ask you a wee favour? I'm doing a lecture on insurance fraud next week and I would like to end it on a happy contrary note. Could you see your way to lend me these photos to make into slides to show that every claim: however outlandish should be given the benefit of the doubt...and that not all such claims should be automatically dismissed as fraudulent?"

    We of course agreed.

    The moral of the story? The bastards never want to pay out. Take photos/ evidence of everything as it happens.



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