Posts tagged “claims stories”

When You’re Not From Around Here

Vessels

Vessels

Heads turned when we walked through the door, in that certain way heads do when y’aren’t from around here, are you’se?

In the lone cafe in a town of less than 400, the kind of town where the city office closes down once a week for no better reason than that it’s Wednesday, it’s not at all hard to spot the strangers.

It didn’t help, I suppose, that we dropped a stack of files on the table in the checkered-floor fifties-style diner before we even saw the menu. We cranked open a laptop and kept trying to make cell phone calls to schedule appointments where everyone knows that intermittent service really means none at all.

We certainly were not from around here.

(more…)

2011/08/10 | Categories: The Work of an Adjuster, Work | Tags: , | 25 Comments

A Day in the Life

A Day in the Life

Call me if you don’t hear from me again in 15 minutes.

I don’t make a habit of sending texts like that. But on days that start like this, I do.

A Day in the LifeThe homeowner lives out of town and wouldn’t be at his seasonal home when I arrived. So he told me where I could find a plastic bag containing a key.

I dug this baggie out from its super secret hiding place, then brushed off spiders, ants and some other red insect that runs very fast on tiny legs when disturbed. A wriggly fellow was a little more stubborn. And I wondered if he had ingested the key.

It was not in the crawly, slimy, mud caked sandwich bag of treasure.

I  tried the side door, just in case it had been left unlocked.

It had.

(more…)

2011/05/23 | Categories: The Work of an Adjuster | Tags: , | 10 Comments

On Being Made Whole

When our policyholder backed his milk truck out of the yard, he took a bit of the farmer’s fence with him. A post and split rail fence, hewn of cedar and weathered hard over twenty-five years of wind and rain and snow.

The same fence the kids all climbed and fell off and tore their jeans on. The same fence where they tied the horses and the dogs lifted their back legs. The same fence where they took the family Christmas picture in 1992, the year the eldest left home. And 1997, the year the baby came. And 2003, the year before Mom died.

Twenty-five feet of that twenty-five year fence now lay in splinters between the alfalfa and the gravel driveway.

We owed the farmer the fence we broke. But we didn’t have twenty-five years to weather a new set of rails and gird up the posts with the rich stories of his life.

So how would he be made whole? (more…)

2010/12/02 | Categories: Faith, The Work of an Adjuster, Work | Tags: | 10 Comments

Vantage Point (Part I)

 

The Jews said, “Look how deeply he loved him.” Others among them said, “Well, if he loved him so much, why didn’t he do something to keep him from dying? After all, he opened the eyes of a blind man.” (John 11:36-37)
Claims folks like me love to tell you that there isn’t much we haven’t heard. We’re great to have at social gatherings because we have some of the best stories. We start to really believe we’ve heard it all. (We haven’t.) One of the things that just doesn’t surprise us much is how vastly divergent perspectives different people may have on the very same incident. On any number of days in the process of investigating an accident we might have conversations like the following:
…
Me: Well, Mrs. Smith, why don’t you go ahead and describe the accident for me.
Mrs. Smith: Ok. First, you have to know I’m an excellent driver. I’ve been driving for over 60 years and I’ve never had a ticket. 
Me: That’s terrific, Mrs. Smith. Now, let’s talk about how the accident happened. 
Mrs. Smith: Right. Well, I was driving down the road, Burlington Boulevard, I think, but I can’t be sure because they keep changing the street names. I was in the right lane and traveling 24 miles per hour because the signs say the speed limit is 25 miles per hour and I don’t ever speed. It was about 4:45 in the afternoon, which I know because I was on my way home from water aerobics and it always gets done at 4:30. I was going eastbound, right into the sun. It was really bright. I remember that because I was having a hard time seeing because, well, you know how the sun can sometimes blind you when it’s setting and it reflects so terribly. So I was driving home, and thinking about that delicious roast that was in the oven and I was just hoping it wasn’t overdone because Mr. Smith just doesn’t like that at all. I came up to an intersection and I had a green light. I know it was green because the cars in the other lane were going through too, the ones that were driving on my left side. Well, you know, I had the green light, so I just went on through. That’s what you’re supposed to do at a green light, go through you know. So I did. And wouldn’t you know it,  I just don’t know where the other car came from, but, BAM! He just hit me. Just like that. And my car spun around and I think I hit something else. A light post maybe. Or maybe it was another car. I just don’t know. It just shocked me, you know. I was pretty shook up. And he hit me in the front, on the right side. I’m pretty sure he was talking on his cellular phone like all those young kids do. And eating a hamburger. And his music was really loud. They just shouldn’t let people do that in their cars, you know?
…
Me: Thanks for speaking to me today, Mr. Johnson. Could you describe for me what happened in the accident?
Mr. Johnson: Sure. Last Tuesday, around 4:30, maybe 5:00, I was on my way home from work. I was on 57th where it crosses Burlington. Are you from around here? It’s kind of a crazy intersection, really busy at that time of day. I was going eastbound, 57th runs east to west. I work in the city, and I always drive 57th home to my place east of the metro. The sun was starting to drop a little, and I remember trying to adjust my rear view mirror because it kept kind of hitting me right in the eye when I’d glance back. Well, anyway, I’m coming up to the intersection, and the light turned green when I was about, oh, I’d say six or eight car lengths back. I kind of slowed up a bit anyway, just to make sure the intersection was clear, but I figured I was good to go since there was another car ahead of me that was already going through. So I kept going, and when I was a little more than half way across, this lady, she just smacked right into me on the back right side of my car. She was going north on Burlington, I’m pretty sure in the left lane, and she must have been flooring it because when she hit me my car spun all the way around and I hit her again on the back part. There were cars on the right side of her that were stopped and backed up for half a block because of the red light. I don’t know what she was doing. So I got out, and another guy stopped to help us, and I borrowed his cell phone to call 911 because I ran out of minutes on mine last month so I haven’t been using it.
…
Me: Mr. Bork, I understand you may have witnessed this accident that happened last week on 57th and Burlington. Could you spare a few minutes to tell me what you saw?
Mr. Bork: Oh, sure. I’d love to. Always glad to help out. Now, let’s see. I was standing on the corner waiting for the light so I could cross Burlington. I was on the, hmm, the northwest corner. No, wait, it was the northeast. Yeah, northeast. Right next to that Starbucks there. I go there for coffee every day. Now they say they’re closing. Don’t know what I’m going to do. Probably will have to start going to McDonalds down the street. Anyway, I’m standing there waiting, kind of feeling like I want to get going fast, because it looked like it was going to rain anytime. It was cloudy and starting to get real dark, you know? It just didn’t feel right. So while I’m standing there waiting for the light to turn green so I can go west across Burlington, this lady pulls up going north. She pulls into the left turn lane there – there’s two lanes you can go straight in, and one you can turn in. She whipped right into the turn lane, and there wasn’t nobody coming the other way, so she went ahead and turned. Well, just as she did that, this other guy, I don’t know what he was thinking, he just came south on Burlington at a high rate of speed, and when he saw her, he slammed on his brakes and he went into a skid, and he starting spinning around, you know, just like you see in the movies. It was really something! He just couldn’t get himself together and he kind of clipped her in the back corner part, by the light. And then she went flying off out of control and up the curb. Never seen nothin’ like it. I was really scared. 
…
The conversations I just had with Mrs. Smith, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Bork all relate to the exact same accident. I do have these kinds of conversations some days, where I have to shake my head and wonder. How can people not see the same accident the same way? They were all there. Yet they don’t all agree on what directions people were going, what the weather conditions were, what color the light was or even which direction the sun sets. Occasionally I find myself asking the person the date and location of the accident again, just to make sure that we’re really talking about the same event. Only once has the person ever thought a little and said, “Oh, wait. Yeah, that was that one on Thursday. You’re talking about the accident on Wednesday, right?” Most of the time I find that people were describing the very same accident. But they recounted the events as they saw them and as they earnestly believed they happened, but all from their own vantage point. And sometimes from where they stood, the facts vary wildly from what the next guy will tell you. It’s all a matter of perspective. 
The folks who were there when Jesus brought Lazarus out from the tomb each had their own vantage point as well. If we were to have interviewed them following these events, they would each have their own version of the facts, and their own reaction. Reading John’s account of the event, we see some of those mixed reactions up close and personal. Look with me over the next couple of days at the various points of view amongst those who witnessed or heard about Lazarus’ miraculous resurrection.
…
When Jesus arrived at Bethany, Martha met Him outside the gate. Meanwhile, Mary stayed in their home, surrounded by many of the Jews who had come to mourn with her and Martha. These mourners stayed close to Mary, and when she left the house to go meet Jesus, they followed her. So they were there to see Jesus when He was so emotionally impacted before He restored Lazarus to life. Amongst these folks who had assembled to mourn with Lazarus’ family we see the first instance of these mixed reactions, the different vantage points.
Some of them watched Jesus as He wept, and they said, “Look how deeply He loved him.” The romantics in the crowd saw Jesus’ tears, saw Him break down emotionally, and they saw Jesus’ profound love for His friend. They sensed His pain and His grief. A man who loved his friend so much would weep at this moment. To them, it could only mean that Jesus loved Lazarus so very deeply. So they watched and they marveled that He could love him so much. 
But there were pragmatists among them as well. They saw the same Jesus weeping in the same way over the same death of the same Lazarus. But for them there was nothing romantic about it. There was nothing touching about it. These were the guys who had no time for the process. No time to just experience. No time to just feel what they were feeling. Got a problem? Well, let’s work out a solution. To these guys, the whole scenario just made no sense. These were the guys who saw Jesus weeping at Lazarus’ tomb and said, “Well, if he loved him so much, why didn’t he do something to keep him from dying? After all, he opened the eyes of a blind man.” Good grief, they said, this guy can work miracles. He can restore sight. Surely He could have healed Lazarus. What was He thinking? Why didn’t He do something? He had a chance to heal him and He didn’t. The solution was right in front of Him. He did nothing. He had His chance, and now He’s standing there crying. What good will that do now? 
Two kinds of people. Two kinds of reactions. Both saw something in Jesus. One saw His capacity to love, to grieve, to feel. The other saw His ability to restore, to heal, to repair. And seeing what they saw, they responded differently. One marveled at Jesus. The other was annoyed at Him. One saw love as deep as the ocean. The other saw one big missed opportunity. One saw the real deal. One saw a fraud. 
I don’t think either one of them saw the resurrection coming. 
But here’s what I do think. I think that the one who recognized Jesus’ deep love for His friend was closer to the Kingdom than the one who believed that Jesus blew the moment. Here’s why. Jesus performed a lot of miraculous signs during His walk on earth. And while the miracles drew people to Him, sometimes in hoards, it was often those that came to Him for the miracles that were the first to go when the going got rough. They didn’t commit to Him because it’s tough to commit if it’s just to the signs.
There were those who were touched personally by Jesus’ power — not just bystanders who were amazed. These were the ones who were healed of debilitating illness, who were lame and made to walk, who were blind and made to see, who had loved ones restored to health or life. They experienced Jesus’ power, yes. But they first experienced His love. They first recognized that He saw them, that He loved them, that He wanted to touch them. They experienced His power through His love. 
I won’t discount the significance of Jesus’ power and of the miracles. And I won’t devise a pecking order for the attributes of God. But I am convinced that those who experienced Jesus’ love were closer to the Kingdom than those who only recognized His power. 
That’s the difference between these two people standing outside the tomb, mourning the death of Lazarus and observing Jesus as He wept. One could recognize the depth of Jesus’ love. The other saw only His power, and His failure to use it.
So when I see Jesus act, or not act, what do I see? 
How do I let my priorities, my experience, my opinions and my preferences affect my perspective on what God is doing?
Is the light red or green? Were you going north or south? Does the sun set in the east or the west? 
What’s my vantage point?
::

The Jews said, “Look how deeply he loved him.” Others among them said, “Well, if he loved him so much, why didn’t he do something to keep him from dying? After all, he opened the eyes of a blind man.” (John 11:36-37)

 

Claims folks like me love to tell you that there isn’t much we haven’t heard. We’re great to have at social gatherings because we have some of the best stories. We start to really believe we’ve heard it all.

We haven’t. There’s always tomorrow.

But one of the things that just doesn’t surprise us much is how vastly divergent perspectives different people may have on the very same incident. On any number of days in the process of investigating an accident we might have conversations like the following:

::

Me: Well, Mrs. Smith, why don’t you go ahead and describe the accident for me.

Mrs. Smith: Ok. First, you have to know I’m an excellent driver. I’ve been driving for over 60 years and I’ve never had a ticket. 

Me: That’s terrific, Mrs. Smith. Now, let’s talk about how the accident happened. 

Mrs. Smith: Right. Well, I was driving down the road, Burlington Boulevard, I think, but I can’t be sure because they keep changing the street names. I was in the right lane and traveling 24 miles per hour because the signs say the speed limit is 25 miles per hour and I don’t ever speed. It was about 4:45 in the afternoon, which I know because I was on my way home from water aerobics and it always gets done at 4:30. I was going eastbound, right into the sun. It was really bright. I remember that because I was having a hard time seeing because, well, you know how the sun can sometimes blind you when it’s setting and it reflects so terribly. So I was driving home, and thinking about that delicious roast that was in the oven and I was just hoping it wasn’t overdone because Mr. Smith just doesn’t like that at all. I came up to an intersection and I had a green light. I know it was green because the cars in the other lane were going through too, the ones that were driving on my left side. Well, you know, I had the green light, so I just went on through. That’s what you’re supposed to do at a green light, go through you know. So I did. And wouldn’t you know it,  I just don’t know where the other car came from, but, BAM! He just hit me. Just like that. And my car spun around and I think I hit something else. A light post maybe. Or maybe it was another car. I just don’t know. It just shocked me, you know. I was pretty shook up. And he hit me in the front, on the right side. I’m pretty sure he was talking on his cellular phone like all those young kids do. And eating a hamburger. And his music was really loud. They just shouldn’t let people do that in their cars, you know?

:: :: ::

Me: Thanks for speaking to me today, Mr. Johnson. Could you describe for me what happened in the accident?

Mr. Johnson: Sure. Last Tuesday, around 4:30, maybe 5:00, I was on my way home from work. I was on 57th where it crosses Burlington. Are you from around here? It’s kind of a crazy intersection, really busy at that time of day. I was going eastbound, 57th runs east to west. I work in the city, and I always drive 57th home to my place east of the metro. The sun was starting to drop a little, and I remember trying to adjust my rear view mirror because it kept kind of hitting me right in the eye when I’d glance back. Well, anyway, I’m coming up to the intersection, and the light turned green when I was about, oh, I’d say six or eight car lengths back. I kind of slowed up a bit anyway, just to make sure the intersection was clear, but I figured I was good to go since there was another car ahead of me that was already going through. So I kept going, and when I was a little more than half way across, this lady, she just smacked right into me on the back right side of my car. She was going north on Burlington, I’m pretty sure in the left lane, and she must have been flooring it because when she hit me my car spun all the way around and I hit her again on the back part. There were cars on the right side of her that were stopped and backed up for half a block because of the red light. I don’t know what she was doing. So I got out, and another guy stopped to help us, and I borrowed his cell phone to call 911 because I ran out of minutes on mine last month so I haven’t been using it.

:: :: ::

Me: Mr. Bork, I understand you may have witnessed this accident that happened last week on 57th and Burlington. Could you spare a few minutes to tell me what you saw?

Mr. Bork: Oh, sure. I’d love to. Always glad to help out. Now, let’s see. I was standing on the corner waiting for the light so I could cross Burlington. I was on the, hmm, the northwest corner. No, wait, it was the northeast. Yeah, northeast. Right next to that Starbucks there. I go there for coffee every day. Now they say they’re closing. Don’t know what I’m going to do. Probably will have to start going to McDonalds down the street. Anyway, I’m standing there waiting, kind of feeling like I want to get going fast, because it looked like it was going to rain anytime. It was cloudy and starting to get real dark, you know? It just didn’t feel right. So while I’m standing there waiting for the light to turn green so I can go west across Burlington, this lady pulls up going north. She pulls into the left turn lane there – there’s two lanes you can go straight in, and one you can turn in. She whipped right into the turn lane, and there wasn’t nobody coming the other way, so she went ahead and turned. Well, just as she did that, this other guy, I don’t know what he was thinking, he just came south on Burlington at a high rate of speed, and when he saw her, he slammed on his brakes and he went into a skid, and he starting spinning around, you know, just like you see in the movies. It was really something! He just couldn’t get himself together and he kind of clipped her in the back corner part, by the light. And then she went flying off out of control and up the curb. Never seen nothin’ like it. I was really scared. 

:: :: ::

The conversations I just had with Mrs. Smith, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Bork all relate to the exact same accident. I do have these kinds of conversations some days, where I have to shake my head and wonder. How can people not see the same accident the same way? They were all there. Yet they don’t all agree on what directions people were going, what the weather conditions were, what color the light was or even which direction the sun sets. Occasionally I find myself asking the person the date and location of the accident again, just to make sure that we’re really talking about the same event. Only once has the person ever thought a little and said, “Oh, wait. Yeah, that was that one on Thursday. You’re talking about the accident on Wednesday, right?” Most of the time I find that people were describing the very same accident. But they recounted the events as they saw them and as they earnestly believed they happened, but all from their own vantage point. And sometimes from where they stood, the facts vary wildly from what the next guy will tell you. It’s all a matter of perspective. 

The folks who were there when Jesus brought Lazarus out from the tomb each had their own vantage point as well. If we were to have interviewed them following these events, they would each have their own version of the facts, and their own reaction. Reading John’s account of the event, we see some of those mixed reactions up close and personal. Look with me over the next couple of days at the various points of view amongst those who witnessed or heard about Lazarus’ miraculous resurrection.

::

When Jesus arrived at Bethany, Martha met Him outside the gate. Meanwhile, Mary stayed in their home, surrounded by many of the Jews who had come to mourn with her and Martha. These mourners stayed close to Mary, and when she left the house to go meet Jesus, they followed her. So they were there to see Jesus when He was so emotionally impacted before He restored Lazarus to life. Amongst these folks who had assembled to mourn with Lazarus’ family we see the first instance of these mixed reactions, the different vantage points.

Some of them watched Jesus as He wept, and they said, “Look how deeply He loved him.” The romantics in the crowd saw Jesus’ tears, saw Him break down emotionally, and they saw Jesus’ profound love for His friend. They sensed His pain and His grief. A man who loved his friend so much would weep at this moment. To them, it could only mean that Jesus loved Lazarus so very deeply. So they watched and they marveled that He could love him so much. 

But there were pragmatists among them as well. They saw the same Jesus weeping in the same way over the same death of the same Lazarus. But for them there was nothing romantic about it. There was nothing touching about it. These were the guys who had no time for the process. No time to just experience. No time to just feel what they were feeling. Got a problem? Well, let’s work out a solution. To these guys, the whole scenario just made no sense. These were the guys who saw Jesus weeping at Lazarus’ tomb and said, “Well, if he loved him so much, why didn’t he do something to keep him from dying? After all, he opened the eyes of a blind man.” Good grief, they said, this guy can work miracles. He can restore sight. Surely He could have healed Lazarus. What was He thinking? Why didn’t He do something? He had a chance to heal him and He didn’t. The solution was right in front of Him. He did nothing. He had His chance, and now He’s standing there crying. What good will that do now? 

::

Two kinds of people. Two kinds of reactions. Both saw something in Jesus. One saw His capacity to love, to grieve, to feel. The other saw His ability to restore, to heal, to repair. And seeing what they saw, they responded differently. One marveled at Jesus. The other was annoyed at Him. One saw love as deep as the ocean. The other saw one big missed opportunity. One saw the real deal. One saw a fraud. 

I don’t think either one of them saw the resurrection coming. 

But here’s what I do think. I think that the one who recognized Jesus’ deep love for His friend was closer to the Kingdom than the one who believed that Jesus blew the moment. Here’s why. Jesus performed a lot of miraculous signs during His walk on earth. And while the miracles drew people to Him, sometimes in hoards, it was often those that came to Him for the miracles that were the first to go when the going got rough. They didn’t commit to Him because it’s tough to commit if it’s just to the signs.

There were those who were touched personally by Jesus’ power — not just bystanders who were amazed. These were the ones who were healed of debilitating illness, who were lame and made to walk, who were blind and made to see, who had loved ones restored to health or life. They experienced Jesus’ power, yes. But they first experienced His love. They first recognized that He saw them, that He loved them, that He wanted to touch them. They experienced His power through His love. 

I won’t discount the significance of Jesus’ power and of the miracles. And I won’t devise a pecking order for the attributes of God. But I am convinced that those who experienced Jesus’ love were closer to the Kingdom than those who only recognized His power. 

That’s the difference between these two people standing outside the tomb, mourning the death of Lazarus and observing Jesus as He wept. One could recognize the depth of Jesus’ love. The other saw only His power, and His failure to use it.

So when I see Jesus act, or not act, what do I see? 

How do I let my priorities, my experience, my opinions and my preferences affect my perspective on what God is doing?

Is the light red or green? Were you going north or south? Does the sun set in the east or the west? 

What’s my vantage point?

::

2008/11/11 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment