The other night Anne was driving home from work when she realised that it wasn't steam coming off the bonnet, but was in fact smoke. She stopped the car and got out as the smoke really started to
come out. Luckily, a couple of cars behind her in the queue of trafic, was a police car, who radioed for a fire engine straight away. The engine was in flames as they got there. Fortunately Anne was fine, very shaken up, but fine. The car, on the other hand, is a total write off.

Now, we were fully insured on that car. Seeing as how it was Anne's first car and it's mostly her that drives it, I wanted to make sure that she'd be okay. Part of the cover is that, if you have an accident, they'll send out a pick up truck and a courtesy car, any time, day or night. Full cover, and not cheap!

However, when she phoned them up, the bloke on at their end said that this was an electrical fault, and therefore not covered under the insurance. An electrical fault? The engine burst into flames! No
mechanic had seen the car, so how could he tell what the cause was from the other end of a telephone line a couple of hundred miles away? But, no, we weren't covered. So Anne was left stranded in the lurch.

Fortunately, on an old bank account she has, they gave all their customers break down cover as an incentive to bank with them. So out they came and brought the car back to our house.

The following morning I went through the insurance policy, and indeed there was a clause about electrical faults and failures. But that was faults and failures, not accidents. And what happened to Anne was an
accident. So, I phoned up the insurance company to sort it out, and the lady that I spoke to was really helpful and agreed that we were indeed covered. So she started processing the claim and organising for a garage to bring out a courtesy car and collect our one. Thing was, the garage was unable to collect our car until the following day, not too big a problem, but had no loan cars available all week: problem! Anne works in a small village about forty miles away with a bus service twice a day if you're lucky. She needs a car to get work. The insurance company did have a back up though, they'd rent one for us. We didn't get that until 3pm though. So Anne had to have a day off work. And all because some jumped up little jobsworth decided that she wasn't covered.

We are intending to make a complaint about this, and so is Anne's boss. And, considering that he contracts Annes services at around forty pounds an hour, a whole day lost is going to cost the insurance
company more than the value of the car! It was an old wreck, only worth about three or four hundred pounds.

So my gripe this week is those jumped up little jobsworths who have no idea whatsoever of the effect of their actions. I hope that he reads this and think, 'Oh Sxxt!'

Pastey

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