The Insurance Jungle

Posted on January 25, 2014January 25, 2014 by Dusty Roads

About a week ago we had the 2013 wrap up meeting in Somerville at the main Boston Office. What that means is I get to drive 51 miles each way to hear how we did and hope for some insights on what’s to come in 2014. Being a work from home employee, my attendance is optional but I am a nosy employee. I want to hear from the horses mouth what’s projected for the coming year. I don’t want to hear all the speculation and innuendo when the meeting results gets rehashed over the email water cooler.

So as a dutiful, nosey employee I made my way (1.5 hours) to the Somerville office via the central artery, the expressway, the “distressway” , Route 93, or any and all of the above, They are all names for the same stretch of highway H_ _ L.

Following the meeting and a nice lunch (I really go for the free food)

I headed back to repeat the process. It was about 2:15-2:30 when I left. That’s slightly ahead of rush hour. (in theory) . Traffic wasn’t too bad as I entered the tunnel to the southern side of the artery but it was filling in fast. I’d almost made it to what they call the Braintree Split when it happened.

I have no idea what actually triggered the accident.

There was a large truck to my right with a brown SUV behind it. I was in the next lane, a travel lane with cars in front and in back and the next lane to my left was also filled with cars.

Traffic was moving probably 30-40 miles per hour. A good clip for the volume. A lot of jockeying goes on here as the right hand lanes try to get to the left side for RT 3 and those on the left try to cross to the right for Rt. 128.

Suddenly I heard things flying and then something shook my car. I didn’t know if I had damage or not but plastic stuff was still flying around so I pulled over. The Brown SUV had hit the left rear of the box truck and the force of that hit bounced him into my car. His SUV was a mess. The truck had only slight damage. My car has a superficial scrape and the passenger mirror was knocked off. It will still cost a bundle to be repainted.

I called 911 and the state police responded right away.

My car was drivable so after an exchange of insurance cards I was on my way, “collateral damage” to the main even between the SUV and the truck. Thus entering the INSURANCE JUNGLE.

My first call was to my insurance carrier to put them on notice. My intention was to go through the SUV’s carrier. First I got a call from the “adjuster” from my company. Then I got a call from the “Liability Adjuster” from my insurance carrier. He took a statement and told me they would pay the whole claim and to go ahead and get the ball rolling with the body shop.

The body shop said “Whoa, not so fast. They won’t pay the deductible.” I said yes, the adjuster said they would because it wasn’t my fault. Then I got another call from someone else …again from my company…who confirmed that they would pay the deductible and “subrogate” from the other carrier.

Today I took my car for an estimate. The body shop will send the estimate in to the company and then we’ll wait for approval to go forward. I still haven’t heard from the other insurance company. In the meantime, duct tape fixes anything. 🙂

Dreaming the Hawaiian Life

Posted on January 23, 2014January 23, 2014 by Dusty Roads

Since my 2 vacations in Hawaii the idea of living there is never far from my mind. Lately I’ve been missing Hawaii even more because there’s a great show about Hawaiian Real Estate on HGTV.

Hawaii is known to be an expensive place to live. As an island everything has to be brought in from the mainland. One of the largest and oldest cattle ranches in the United States is located on the Big Island. Known as the Parker Ranch is was founded in 1847, almost 30 years before most of the southwestern ranches on the mainland.

The ranch is a working cattle ranch even today and is now run by a charitable trust. The Ranch owns approximately 26,000 head of cattle, mostly Angus and Charolais breeds, with 17,000 pastured on the Ranch at any given time. The rest are in pasture or feedlots on the mainland. With about 300 breeding bulls, the cowherd is divided into two breeding seasons, winter and summer, with about 50% of the herd in each season.

When we visited the Big Island we drove past sections of the Parker Ranch but we didn’t take time for the tours.

One night we stopped at a local grocery and bought a steak to grill. Since we were on vacation I didn’t hesitate to buy it but I did notice it was expensive. It surprised me since we’d just heard about how big the Parker Ranch was and how much cattle was raised there.

Never being shy, we asked about the high price of beef and milk and were told that the Parker Ranch sends just about all of it’s beef cattle to the mainland for slaughter and then the butchered meat is shipped back. That extra step is the added cost but I will tell you it was one of the best steaks I have had in a long time. Well worth the extra money.

Back to the show, Hawaii Life, I was surprised that they show case many affordable homes less than $500,000. It looks like the real estate market is comparable to the Boston market. Of course , there are the million dollar homes too. 🙂

Anyway, in our meeting yesterday at work, our manager said the company is planning to expand into Hawaii. Of course that is on the drawing board and no one knows how soon it will actually happen, but maybe my dream of living there isn’t so far fetched after all!

Blue Skies

Posted on January 22, 2014January 22, 2014 by Dusty Roads

Talk about coincidence. I recently started reading Robyn Carr Books. I got hooked on her novels with a series called Virgin River Series.

I have been trying to track down all of the novels in that series. She’s a little bit of a departure from my usual reading. The Virgin River Series follows the lives of the residents of Virgin River. A little rural town in the mountains near Oregon. The series is a little like a soap opera in a book but there’s no infidelity, rather mishaps like a lost hunter, a forest fire, a school bus crash and so on. Things that could happen in any small town. The same characters are in each novel and you can follow their lives. Things like how they met their spouses, their births of their children, and how little misunderstanding an get twisted around until , in the end, it all works out.

While browsing in a used book store for another of her novels I ran across a book titled Blue Skies. It was by Robyn Carr but it wasn’t part of her Virgin River Series. When I couldn’t find any of those that I hadn’t read, I decided to pick up this book.

Little did I know that it would be a great supplement to what was going on with Southwest. Southwest Airlines is currently dealing with the embarrassment of having one of their passenger jets land at the wrong airport. Blue Skies is about the start up of a low cost airline as the other larger carriers struggle with the changes and realities of air travel since 9/11.

As I was reading I thought that one of the airlines in the book reminded me of Southwest. It had been a start-up not that many years ago and was dealing with the issues of growing into a major carrier. It had gone from a tiny local carrier to a much larger one and with the growth came the employee unrest, budget issues and all of the other headaches.

The principal characters leave the struggling Aries Airline to join another start-up. Of course the book is about the characters and the airline is just the back drop but it’s a fun read. At one point Nikki reminisces with her friend Dixie about how air travel has changed, how back in the day the crew were like “rock stars” and treated with respect and people dressed in their Sunday best and were polite. (I remember traveling like that)

Dixie’s comeback was and they made the “stews” weigh in before each flight and issued padding if you weren’t endowed enough.

I guess the romance of flying depended on where you were on the organizational chart.

It’s a fun book and easy reading but it was perfect timing considering the Southwest debacle.

Mother Nature’s at it Again

Posted on January 21, 2014January 21, 2014 by Dusty Roads

So much for “clear skies”. The Northeast just went under a blizzard warning for tonight and tomorrow until 1pm. Up to 12 inches of snow and bitter cold is predicted. My co-workers who are flying JetBlue out of Logan (Boston) are scrambling. Flights are already being grounded. Even so some airlines are charging extra to re-book .

Work emails are flying telling us what the company will pay for and what to do if we have to arrive a day early.

I spent 45 minutes on hold for Southwest Airlines. According to their web site my plane tomorrow is on- time and scheduled. Once I got through to a real live person I was assured that I would be notified of any change but as of this minute the flight was scheduled to take off on time.

I just hope I’ll be able to get to the airport to be on it.

Clear Skies Ahead

Posted on January 21, 2014January 21, 2014 by Dusty Roads

I’ll be heading to San Diego soon. It’s just a quick business trip. I haven’t said much about it here because there wasn’t any planning. The company told me when to fly out, where I would stay, what meetings to attend and when to come back. I would have loved to extend my time there for some sight-seeing but I’m still squaring away my new budget and felt the added expense would be more stressful than the time away would be worth.

I will be flying Southwest Airlines out of Providence. Most of my colleagues are flying JetBlue out of Logan in Boston. I wasn’t expecting the reaction from my co-workers when I attended a recent meeting at my office. My boss made an announcement cautioning all to be prepared for anything from delays to getting snowbound but some of my friends chipped in with “Or going to the wrong airport”.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/13/travel/southwest-plane-wrong-airport/index.html

Maybe you heard about it. On Sunday, Jan 12 a Southwest Airlines Jet carrying 124 passengers landed at a little Missouri airport about 7 miles from their destination of Branson. The landing was without mishap even though the little regional airport isn’t set up for larger jets and the runway is only 3,738 ft. compared to the runway at Branson which is 7,140.

The pilots recognized the shortness of the runway and managed to brake in time to prevent disaster but to add insult to injury the flight attendant announced “Welcome to Branson.” Then, after a few moments, the pilot came on and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to tell you we landed at the wrong airport.'”

Whew…if I were that pilot my face would be so red!

To their credit, Southwest didn’t just apologize for the inconvenience, they put their money where their mouth is. Southwest issued this written statement: “We have since reached out to each customer directly to apologize, refund their tickets and provide future travel credit as a gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience.”

I’d take a landing at the wrong airport when no one is hurt in exchange for free tickets and credits any day. I’d consider it an “adventure.” 🙂 Maybe I’m a little nuts?

Anyway, the pilot and co-pilot, both very experienced officers are currently suspended while the incident is investigated. Airline insiders say these things do happen but very rarely so I guess my odds of getting a free ticket for a landing at the wrong airport just took a nose dive.