Blessed Insurance

I test drove a new car this morning.  I'm not entirely serious about buying a new car, but it's a car I wanted to drive. The salesman was happy to let me drive it.  I'm always concerned about wrecking a dealership's car. I know it's insured, but the thought of crashing one of their new cars is not a pleasant thought.

I have good reason to be concerned.  Although I am a careful driver, I have had quite a few car accidents over the years.  Most of them were not my fault, but a few of them were. One of my official accident reports in the state of Alabama reads "Not paying attention."  Actually, I was paying attention. But I was paying attention to the accident in progress in front of me instead of the one I was about to have.

My last accident nearly three years ago could have easily been my last accident.  This one was not my fault, but it could have been the end of me.  I walked away with a serious whiplash injury, but I was otherwise unhurt.

The accident I recall most often was totally my fault. It was the accident after the "not paying attention" wreck about six months earlier.  I ran a red light in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. I
t-boned the car coming across the intersection and then pushed it into a car in the opposing traffic.  I don't know what was going on with that third car, but the driver immediately sped away.  I totaled both my own three month old car and the car I crashed into.  Since I didn't recall even seeing a traffic light, I drove back to the scene the next day.  One very large limb had been cut from the very large tree.  But it was a day too late for me and the accident was still  my fault.  When I bought my car I was not quite 21 years old and had a friend sign for the car. It was a formality as I was going to pay for the car.  I don't recall ever making sure the car was covered under my father's umbrella policy for his fleet.  Surely I made that call.  But at any rate I  thought the car was covered.   After the accident I called my father's insurance agent to tell him about the wreck.  He checked the records on my car and asked me, "Who is Charlie?"  I told him that Charlie was my friend who signed for the car.  Then he said some of the most awful words I have ever heard spoken, "David, Charlie has no interest in your dad's company. Your car is not covered."

My heart stopped beating.  Before I could recover enough to speak, he spoke some of the most wonderful words I have ever heard, "Let me see what I can do."  To this day I don't know why he did what he did.  He certainly didn't have to. I'm sure there were risks involved. The accident was my fault and my significant oversight was my fault as well. After a very long few minutes, the agent called me back and said, "I tell you what we're going to do.  Charlie is going to sell you that car yesterday and we're going to cover it yesterday."  Did you know you can buy a car for a dollar?  That bill of sale read "For Good and  Valuable Consideration of One Dollar the seller does hereby grant the personal property" etc..  Since I have no recollection of actually finding Charlie, I think my father's agent let me sign for him as well.

I would give you more details if I remembered those details, but I don't.  But I do remember this. The insurance agent did something that in 2015 dollars probably cost his company around $90,000. The only reason I can come up with is the goodwill my father had garnered over years by doing business with him. And he must have garnered a significant amount of goodwill with his own company.

I worked with a minister once who had spent some time selling term life insurance.  He told me that when his prospects said, "But if I don't die, we wasted all that money", my friend told them, "You didn't waste anything. All that time you had the insurance."  If I had wrecked that car this morning, insurance wouldn't have fixed everything, but it would have fixed a lot.  If I end up buying the car, the insurance is the first thing I'll take care of. And it's money I'm always more than glad to waste.