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Angry Storm Blows Into City With The Mail

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By STEVE OTTO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 13, 2008

It's getting into the heart of August and hurricane season and tropical depressions are lining up out in the Atlantic, so I shouldn't have been all that surprised when an angry wind whipped through the house and circled around my head.

It was my wife with the mail. I knew there was a problem when she stood there waving an opened envelope and started going on about insurance. It's not like it hasn't happened before. Most of us do the same thing, especially living in Florida, where we have become chum in waters infested with insurance company sharks. The governor tried to help for a while, but when that didn't work he decided to either get married or run for vice president. The rest of us, meanwhile, are flailing away as the bills roll in.

"Look at this!" she demanded, waving a handful of papers in the air.

I didn't really want to look. I was trying to watch a critical beach volleyball match between two women's teams. Somehow the idea of four women in bikinis playing volleyball in the sand in China, with about 4 billion people watching around the world was too much to pass up, especially to look at insurance papers I didn't understand to begin with.

A Familiar Obscurity Insurance papers were designed by the same people who send out telephone bills with obscure fees and charges you can't decipher, so you just pay them rather than trying to actually talk to a live person at the phone company, which is technically impossible. Actually, I'm not even sure there is a phone company anymore. All I know is that some company has a strange black box in our house that controls everything, including the telephone.

"Look at these charges and tell me what they mean?" That was the Frau again, dumping a handful of hieroglyphics from the insurance company on my lap.

I stared at where she was pointing. "Why, that's the Emergency Management Fund charge," I said. That's something the state needs in case of emergencies.

"OK," she said, "How about that one?"

Covering The Big One

"Why that's the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund Emergency Assessment."

I knew she was going to ask me the difference, so I quickly read the next charge.

"Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund Premium Recoupment." I went on to explain that was in case we still had any money left from the charge before that. I kept reading, although I noticed she was already hitting her head against the wall.

"Citizens Emergency Assessment." I knew that one. "That's for those not lucky enough to have an insurance company like ours willing to take our money," I said and kept reading.

"FIGA Emergency Recoupment." I had to admit to her I didn't know what a FIGA was except it was costing me another $28.32. There was one more.

"Citizens Regular Recoupment." "Man, how many recoupments do these guys get?"

It turned out they got one more. When I looked at our car insurance there was one called "Florida Catastrophe Emergency Assessment," which sounded like the others except it was attached to our car insurance.

"Look," I said, "It's not all bad. If the Big One comes in we can cover our windows with all this paper. Nothing will get through."

Keyword, Otto Graphs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.

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