Category: General

Insurance – We All Pay

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Recently the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) has estimated the annual cost of “crash for cash” fraud is £392m a year, with one in seven personal injury claims linked to suspected scams.

In a way this doesn’t surprise me. One only has to watch the TV for a short time to be inundated with ‘ambulance chaser’ type advertisements, amongst all the others for quick credit and ‘cheap’ sofas.

Now, I’m one of the first to complain about the cost of insurance, and how quick insurance companies are to raise rates and how slow they often seem to be to pay out.

I live in an area with excellent public transport links, and recently, after making tentative inquiries about auto insurance decided against getting a car on the road again, as for me, it’s not a necessity.

A few months ago, I was in one of the stores of my phone provider, Three, and I made inquiries about what phone insurance deals they have available.

‘None, Sir’, was the reply. ‘We stopped offering insurance due to the extremely high level of fraud’.

Eyebee in CostaI already have a policy (on which I recently had to make a genuine claim) through my bank, and I’ll stick with that.

Apparently many people think it’s just fine to ‘add on’ a few extras when making a claim or exaggerate injuries. Thing is, they’re not getting money for nothing – everyone pays a lot extra on their premiums because of such practises.

Some years ago, I spilt paint on a fairly new carpet, and spent some time trying to remove it, with only limited success. I didn’t even think to claim on my home contents insurance which included ‘new for old’ and accidental damage coverage. Silly me.

On the other hand, and around the same number of years ago, when I was moaning about the age and performance of the TV set I owned a friend in all seriousness suggested I claim on my insurance.

‘I can’t claim for a new TV’, I said.
‘You can, if you drop the old one down the stairs, while you were moving it’, he responded.

To be honest, such a thought had never crossed my mind. Suffice to say, I didn’t act on his suggestion. As well as being dishonest, I didn’t fancy trying to cart a 26 inch CRT TV cabinet upstairs; didn’t fancy the mess I’d have to clear up when I dropped it back down them; and I’m a terrible liar.

When I read facts and figures on both the sophisticated methods used, and the amount of money defrauded each year, I’m glad that the IFB along with the police are taking these crimes seriously.

After all, it’s not victimless. We all pay.

Look After Your Own Safety

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Here, in Britain, arguably the world’s leading nanny state, health and safety is rammed down your throat at every opportunity.

Cynical me thinks it’s done more to keep the legal compensation sharks away from the door more than for a concern for safety itself. Having said that, the number one rule for health and safety, at least in the workplace, is looking out for your own safety first.

Why then do people in general every day situations tend to put themselves into danger all the time without even thinking about it. Perhaps that’s it. SOme of the problem is that so many of us are so absorbed into our gadgets these days, usually involving a cellphone – either making a call, or reading messages, listening to music, or watching video, that we simply don’t look where we’re going.

But it’s not just that.

Time and time again I see people jaywalking. When I was growing up we didn’t have a variety of road crossings named after various animals. Just one, the Zebra. I was taught that you stopped at the crossing, ascertained that either the road was clear to cross, or that the traffic had actually stopped at the crossing to allow you to cross. You were then supposed to walk (but never run) across the crossing, staying on the crossing itself. Doesn’t happen these days. When driving you have to be a mind reader as people just suddenly swivel at 90 degrees, and walk out without looking, and without giving vehicles time to stop. When walking, trying to get moving vehicles to stop so you can cross can be a frustrating waiting game.

Car doors are another danger. Not just to cyclists, but to any road user, when the car driver or passengers just open the doors without looking, particularly on the offside on narrow streets.

I really don’t understand this mentality. I always look before putting myself into any kind of danger. For example, I’ll walk under a ladder rather than walk into the street to get around it and get run over, but I’ll always look up too, in case there’s a danger of something falling from above.

Looking out for your own safety only takes a second or two, but can save injury or worse.

Looking out for other people’s safety is just as important too, and often a necessity when people don’t look out for themselves!

Hot Weather? Be Sensible!

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England’s having a decent spell of warm weather right now. Some of us (myself included) love it.  Others hate any kind of heat,  or even sunshine. Having lived overseas for several years,  where the humidity was often higher than the temperature in summer,  I’m used to it,  and personally find all the fuss about it somewhat amusing.

Still,  to be fair to my fellow countrymen,  it’s the exception rather than a regular event to have more than the odd day or two with daytime temperatures topping out over 85 degrees.  (That’s 30 in foreign money).

There’s a few things to do to deal with it, whether you like the heat or not.

Drink plenty. Plenty of water that is. Alcohol is fine in moderation, but as it has a dehydrating effect, by only drinking alcoholic drinks you can easily dehydrate quicker and that can cause problems.

Use sun block if you’re outside in the sun for long. You don’t need sunburn, or worse, sunstroke on top of the dehydration!