Penny Black's Insurance Week - 5 September 2013
Just when Penny thought she’d heard it all when it comes to amusing claims, a loss adjuster invited her to consider a new concept: contaminated compost.
Ever the professional, Penny stifled her giggles as she heard about a £10m claim lodged by a Dutch tulip farmer for his mucky manure. The farmer, Penny concedes, probably found it less entertaining when the foul fertiliser killed a precious tulip crop, robbing him of the chance to pocket cash from tourists. Who knew dirty dung could do such damage?
Meanwhile, Penny has never been much of traveller; while her socialite friends frequently flock to foreign climes, she is happier spending her summer in a dark room with a bottle of gin, finally safe from the insurance industry. However, there was no such respite for one gentleman who told Penny of a recent trip to Gibraltar on which he ventured out to see the premises of failed passporting insurer Lemma. What a holiday. The tourist in question was, however, surprised to discover the firm’s tiny office above a family restaurant. Not quite the exalted environs in which one would expect to find an insurer running 3% of the UK solicitors’ professional indemnity market. And they say good things come in small packages...
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