Is Your Life Insured?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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It’s an interesting question.

But worry not, I am not going to try to sell you an insurance policy nor even recommend one.

Quite the reverse in fact.

Many people have some kind of life insurance for the financial protection of their families if they should be unfortunate to pass away unexpectedly.

It is usually for enough money to pay off the mortgage with a little left over to provide some kind of income for the wife and kids.

At least that’s how it should be.

But there is a growing trend for employers to insure their employees. A nice gesture you might think at first. Until you find out that the beneficiary of the insurance would not be the survivors or estate of the insured employee, but the corporate pension plan!

It is unofficially known as “dead peasant” insurance, and hundreds of corporations have already taken out policies worth hundreds of billions of dollars, on thousands of employees, providing companies with a steady stream of income as current and former employees die  –  even decades after they have retired or left the company.

And new “dead peasant”policies worth at least $1 billion are being put in place every year!

Unsurprisingly the greedy money-grabbing banksters are especially fond of the practice. Bank of America’s policies have a cash surrender value of at least $17.6 billion; Wells Fargo’s at least $12.7 billion; and JPMorgan Chase at least $5 billion, according to filings with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.

Of course the tax-men are to blame too – aren’t they always? – because so-called company-owned life insurance offers employers generous tax breaks. For example, company-paid premiums are tax-free, as are any investment returns on the policies and the death benefits eventually received. Although having said that it has to be admitted (grudgingly) that the I.R.S. has taken companies including Winn-Dixie and Camelot Music to court for using such policies as tax avoidance schemes.

Many people faced with a request from an employer to consent to such a policy are too afraid not to comply in case it affects their job or promotion prospects. They shouldn’t be because that would probably be illegal as well as unethical. Class-action lawsuits against several companies with such policies are already underway or have been settled. Several companies, including Walmart, settled the suits, paying millions to low-ranking employees who had been covered.

So if you are uncomfortable with the thought that your company might profit from your death, don’t sign up.

And as for the corporations? I’m as fond of making a few bucks as the next man, but you have to draw a line somewhere and I think corporations should be content with the contribution their employees make to their company profits when they are alive, instead of conniving to profit from their deaths also.

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They Say Pride Goes Before A Fall

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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So, if pride goes before a fall, what goes before a CRASH?

Well, in terms of the pathetic Obamacare web site, the usual form of words from the Obama Administration is

“…the site was fully-functioning for a “vast majority” of users.”

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CRASH!

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It happened again last week, early Friday afternoon in fact, as millions of Americans tried to get insurance coverage before the deadline.

I don’t know where they got the information that the site was functioning for the “vast majority of users”.

Well, I do actually. It was a lie. Another one.

In fact the healthcare.gov is not fully-functioning for anyone. On the positive side I suppose you could say that everyone has an equal chance of not being able to use the web site, but that is small comfort to those trying to do so.

And this is just the latest CRASH of many. Last November there was another major one. They “fixed” it, except of course they didn’t, they just got it working for a while, until it toppled over again.

Left in the hands of idiot bureaucrats who clearly have no idea what they are doing, no system can work efficiently. They choose bad designers, who use bad code, produce a bad product, and then are amazed and surprised when it doesn’t work.

There are tens of thousands of commercial web sites, like Google, Amazon, Ebay, Microsoft, even Wikipedia, that take much higher traffic every day without crashing – and they’ve been doing it for years.

Yet the bureaucratic bunglers can’t get their web site working for more than a few weeks at a time.

About all they got right was the timing of the CRASH.

No, wait, they even got that wrong, because the whole debacle happened less than two hours before President Obama had a scheduled press conference, helping to push his approval rating more and more in the negative direction.

But fear not, as millions of his citizens now find themselves stressed and worrying because they have no insurance – due to no fault of their own –  their leader will have a solution.

I don’t know what it is, but the odds are in favor of another vacation, possibly in Hawaii – but definitely fully insured!

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Can Heads That Have No Brains Handle A No-Brainer?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Time for another rant about the slime of creation, also known as the banksters.

This blog is about highlighting and fighting against stupidity and bureaucracy and there is no better example of this than the banking industry.

Their stupidity is only matched by their arrogance and their greed.

More than five years on from plunging the world into a financial catastrophe, and all of us into debt that will take generations to sort out, they are still at it!

And the governments are still faffing about, afraid to take on those who bribe them with “contributions” to their election campaigns.

For example, the European parliament only reached a “tentative deal” last Wednesday evening to limit bankers’ bonuses at twice the value of their fixed pay. They call it “imposing the toughest limits on pay since the financial crisis”. Gimme strength!!! Of course, the deal, still has to be endorsed formally by governments and lawmakers (i.e., the bureaucrats), and is the result of 18 months of farting around (they call it negotiating).

It’s a start, but a poor and a slow one.

It shows how long it takes for a no-brainer to happen in heads that have no brains!

In timely manner, latest results last week came from Europe, namely the grandly named basket-case Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Lloyds Group, and Spain’s lesser sounding Bankia.

Already more than 80% owned by the British Government (i.e., taxpayers) who stupidly bailed out these idiots to the tune of almost $70 billion, RBoS have announced further losses of around $9 billion!

To make matters worse, $1.6 billion of that was to compensate clients wrongly sold insurance and interest-rate hedging products – which is a nice way of saying they have been caught fleecing their customers and now have to pay back money they cheated their clients out of in the first place.

They called it a “chastening year”.  

Meatime Lloyds chalked up further losses to the tune of more than $2 billion!

And the banksters aren’t any smarter in Spain either. Bankia also this week reported a net loss of €19.06 billion ($25.04 billion) for 2012, by far the largest in Spanish corporate history.

And you know what? Let’s add insult to injury.

These dumb-asses are looking for bonuses for their efforts.

Can you believe it?

If someone starts a business and it fails, no one gives them a bonus – they lose their business (usually because the banksters force them to close down).

Just how on earth have we allowed the banking industry to create a culture of stupidity to take hold and remain in place after such clear evidence that it is not working. It is completely absurd.

Hit your sales targets, make money for the company and yes sir you can have a bonus and well deserved. Cost the company $ billions and drive it to bankruptcy because of your incompetence and the only bonus you should get is early parole for good behavior.

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That’s Europe taken care of, can’t go without a word about the American banksters too.

Latest news is that they “have discovered” that they wrongfully foreclosed on more than 700 members of the military during the housing crisis and seized homes from about two dozen other borrowers who were current on their mortgage payments,

The banks, namely Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, only found the foreclosures after regulators ordered them to examine mortgages as part of a multibillion-dollar federal settlement. Each bank “discovered” around 200 members of the military whose homes were wrongly foreclosed in 2009 and 2010.

So while military personnel are putting themselves in harm’s way to protect and defend the country, the slime in the banks are busy trying to illegally foreclose on their homes.

Incredible!

Not only do these foreclosures violate the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a federal law requiring banks to obtain court orders before foreclosing on active-duty members, but they violate every common law of decency.

The sooner governments come to their senses and put these banksters out of business the better and cleaner the country will be.

***end rant***

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Hard Luck Mr Scott, The Romance May Be Dead But Your Wife Isn’t!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yesterday the subject of my blog post was a rather nice story about a farmer in England who had put a lot of thought, time and effort into creating a memorial tribute to his late wife. I called it “Well done Winston Howes, Who Says Romance Is Dead?”.

A bit out of character for this blog perhaps, but I admire people who do things that are just that little bit above and beyond the call of duty.

Today, however, you could say that “normal service” has been resumed. You could probably tell from the title, “Hard Luck Mr Scott, The Romance May Dead But Your Wife Isn’t!“.

This is a story about another Englishman. This time a Mr Peter Scott from Southsea who has gone down in history as the least successful husband at trying to murder his wife!

All in all Mr Scott made seven attempts to kill his wife.

And the strangest thing of all was that she never once noticed that anything was wrong.

It all started in 1980 when he took out an insurance policy on his good lady that would pay out a quarter of a million British pounds in the event of her accidental death.

 

insurance money

Shortly afterward, he made his first attempt to cash in when he placed a lethal dose of mercury in her strawberry flan. Unfortunately for Mr Scott the heavy mercury all rolled out.

Strike attempt # 1.

 

strawberry flan

However, not wishing to waste this deadly substance, he next stuffed a mackerel with the entire contents of the bottle. This time, to his delight, his wife ate it, but, to his dismay, with no side effects whatsoever.

Strike attempt # 2.

 

mackerel

Warming to the task, he then took his better half on holiday to Yugoslavia. Recommending the panoramic views, he invited her to sit on the edge of a cliff, but she declined to do so, prompted by what she later described as some “sixth sense.”  

Strike attempt # 3.

 

cliff

He tried the same type of thing a few weeks later when he urged her to enjoy the view from Beachy Head, the famous 500 feet high chalk headland in the south of England.

Strike attempt # 4.

 

Beachy Head

Then, when his spouse was in bed with chicken-pox he started a fire outside her bedroom door, but some interfering busybody put it out.

Strike attempt # 5.

 

Would-be Arsonist

Undeterred, Mr Scott started another fire but only succeeded in burning down the entire apartment. The target of his arsonist adventures escaped uninjured.

Strike attempt # 6.

 

burning apsrtment

On yet another occasion he asked her to stand in the middle of the road so that he could drive toward her and check if his brakes were working.

Strike attempt # 7.

 

Road Rage

Unbelievably, at no time did Mrs. Scott feel that the magic had gone out of their marriage. She must have been sooooo dumb!

Finally, since it appeared that nothing short of a small nuclear bomb would have alerted this good woman to her husband’s intentions, he eventually gave up and confessed everything to the police.

 

arrested

After the case, a detective said Mrs. Scott had been “absolutely shattered” when told of her husband’s plot to kill her.

 

Had not a clue

 

Mandatory Private Health Insurance – Whatever Next?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I wrote a post on my blog a while ago called “It Always Surprises Me How One Thing Leads To Another!” and so it has again. I was intending another subject for today’s post but a recent comment got me thinking about Obamacare and the recent SCOTUS ruling.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go into an analyses of that just now apart from making this small point. When Obamacare (some people call it The Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act), became law on March 23, 2010, it contained a provision that requires all Americans to have private health insurance coverage starting in 2014.

Further than that, any American who does not, will have to pay a penalty, up to 2.5% of his/her income, to the IRS.

Now I know that, if you can afford it, having an adequate health plan is a sensible thing. But legislating to make it compulsory, well, that’s a different thing entirely.

I am astounded that more people haven’t been kicking up their heels and screaming about this, which is in effect a tax or fine for something you didn’t do, rather than something you did. But they haven’t. Maybe it is because 2014 is way in the future, like just a few months away, (duhh) and therefore nothing needs to be done.

So, I’m thinking if they get away with this, whatever is next. And then it hit me, so to speak.

Sex.

Some moron either in the Oval office or in a square office in the Senate or Congress will come up with the idea of legislating sex. I don’t mean they’re going to make it compulsory or otherwise, just that we’ll all need to take out relevant insurance to cover it, so to speak.

Although it is not always immediately apparent, fasab is a helpful blog. Always going the extra mile to assist people where possible, either by highlighting the bureaucratic bunglers in our midst, or trying to amuse, or being informative.

Today it’s the latter (it isn’t really, it’s the middle one), because I have come across a list of the correct insurance companies for sex. The list can be found below.

Enjoy!

 

THE correct Insurance Companies for sex, depending on your tastes) are:

 

SEX with your wife – Legal & General

 

SEX with your future wife- Mutual Trust

 

SEX with your secretary – Employers Liability

 

SEX with a prostitute – Commercial Union

 

SEX on the telephone- Direct line

 

SEX with your biographer – Quote me Happy

 

SEX in a hurry- Insure & Go

 

SEX with your boyfriend – Standard Life

 

SEX with a transvestite – Confused . com

 

SEX with some one different – Go compare . com

 

SEX with a wild animal – Compare the meerkat . com

 

SEX with a fat bird – More Than

 

SEX on the back seat – Sheila’s Wheels

 

SEX with an o.a.p – Saga

 

SEX with a posh bird – Privilege .com

 

SEX with yourself – John Hancock Insurance

 

SEX with safety in mind – Protective Life

 

and finally,

 

SEX with a sheep – Farmers Union

 

 

Another Few Funnies For Friday

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

 

It’s Friday again so time for another few funnies.

This time another batch from the insurance claim file.

I hope you enjoy.

 

“I was driving along the motorway when the police pulled me over onto the hard shoulder. Unfortunately I was in the middle lane and there was another car in the way..”

 

Q: “Could either driver have done anything to avoid the accident?”

A: “Travelled by bus?”

 

“On approach to the traffic lights the car in front suddenly broke.”

 

“First car stopped suddenly, second car hit first car and a haggis ran into the rear of second car.”

 

“The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention.”

 

“The accident happened when the right front door of a car came round the corner without giving a signal.”

 

“My car got hit by a submarine.”

(The Navy informed the wife of a submariner that the craft was due in port. She drove to the base to meet her husband and parked at the end of the slip where the sub was to berth. An inexperienced ensign was conning the sub and it rammed the end of the slip, breaking a section away, causing her car to fall into the water. The Navy paid the compensation claim.)

 

“I bumped into a lamp-post which was obscured by human beings.”

 

“The accident was caused by me waving to the man I hit last week.”

 

“I knocked over a man; he admitted it was his fault for he had been knocked down before.”

 

“A house hit my car.”

(A house was being moved by a large truck. My friend had his car parked on the side of the road correctly. The house began to tilt off the truck and eventually fell off the truck, landing on my friend’s car. He eventually had the insurance paid, after lengthy explanation and the moving company confirming the story.)

 

 

The Things People Say – To Their Insurance Companies

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Always try to start the week with a smile. This time it is with the help of another helping from those rather confused citizens who write reports to their insurance companies after an accident. They always make interesting reading and usually raise a smile or two.

 

As ever, hope you enjoy.

 

 

I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way.

 

 

A truck backed through my windshield into my wife’s face.

 

The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention.

 

 

My car was legally parked as it backed into another vehicle.

 

 

When I saw I could not avoid a collision I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other car.

 

 

To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front I struck a pedestrian.

 

 

I started to slow down but the traffic was more stationary than I thought.

 

 

The accident occurred when I was attempting to bring my car out of a skid by steering it into the other vehicle.

 

 

I was backing my car out of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in the same place it had been struck several times before.

 

 

I was unable to stop in time and my car crashed into the other vehicle. The driver and passengers then left immediately for a vacation with injuries.

 

 

I saw her look at me twice. She appeared to be making slow progress when we met on impact.

 

 

The gentleman behind me struck me on the backside. He then went to rest in a bush with just his rear end showing.

 

 

The car in front of me stopped for a yellow light, so I had no choice but to hit him. (She pushed him through the intersection)

 

 

The pedestrian ran for the pavement, but I got him.

 

 

The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.

 

 

I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road when I struck him.

 

 

The pedestrian had no idea which way to run as I ran over him.

 

 

The car in front hit the pedestrian but he got up so I hit him again.

 

 

I saw a slow moving, sad faced old gentleman as he bounced off the roof of my car.

 

 

A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.

 

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Some More Insurance Claims

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today I started to write a blog post about something entirely different. Then I came across another selection of motor insurance claims. I always enjoy these. It is fascinating what the general public can do with the English language. They don’t quite kill it, but they certainly torture it a bit.

Here’s today’s selection.

I hope you enjoy them.

 

 

The claimant had collided with a cow.

The questions and answers on the claim form were –

Q: What warning was given by you?

A: Horn.

Q: What warning was given by the other party?

A: Moo.

 

 

Who is to Blame?

No one was to blame for the accident but it would never have happened if the other driver had been alert.

 

 

I didn’t think the speed limit applied after midnight.

 

 

I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car.

 

 

The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.

 

 

I was going at about 70 or 80 mph when my girlfriend reached over and grabbed my testicles so I lost control.

 

 

I was on the way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident.

 

 

On approach to the traffic lights the car in front suddenly broke.

 

 

The accident was caused by me waving to the man I hit last week.

 

 

Windshield broke. Cause unknown. Probably Voodoo.

 

 

No witnesses would admit having seen the mishap until after it happened.

 

 

I had been learning to drive with power steering. I turned the wheel to what I thought was enough and found myself in a different direction going the opposite way.

 

 

The accident happened when the right front door of a car came round the corner without giving a signal.

 

 

I had been driving for forty years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.

 

 

I left for work this morning at 7am as usual when I collided straight into a bus. The bus was 5 minutes early.

 

 

An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished.

 

 

I knew the dog was possessive about the car but I would not have asked her to drive it if I had thought there was any risk.

 

 

The accident happened because I had one eye on the truck in front, one eye on the pedestrian, and the other on the car behind.

 

 

I started to turn and it was at this point I noticed a camel and an elephant tethered at the verge. This distraction caused me to lose concentration and hit a bollard.

 

 

Collisions, Crashes, And Calamities.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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We’ve touched on this subject before but there are far, far too many idiots allowed to be put in charge of motor vehicles. Inevitably these morons at one time or more end up crashing, sometimes it is a solo effort, at other times they take some other unfortunate with them.

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However it happens, the inevitable result as well as the police becoming involved is that the insurance companies are quickly brought on board to fight the cases.

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Here are a few descriptions given by some intellectually challenged drivers to their insurance companies trying to explain the mayhem that they had caused.

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Poor doggie. You’ll see what I mean.

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Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t have.

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I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat found that I had a fractured skull.

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I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.

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I thought my window was down, but I found it was up when I put my head through it.

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As I approached an intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.

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In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.

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I saw two kangaroos having it off in the middle of the road. So I hit them, which caused me to ejaculate through the sunroof.

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I was thrown from my car as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.

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The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out of the way when I struck the front end.

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I pulled in to the side of the road because there was smoke coming from under the hood. I realized there was a fire in the engine, so I took my dog and smothered it with a blanket.

 

Insuring A Bomb Shelter???

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

 

Something a bit lighter for today’s blog.

We’re going to talk about the end of the world!

 

One thing that you are sure of these days if you are in business is being asked stupid questions. Unfortunately, rather than saying exactly what you think, you have to bite you lip or maybe as in this case give a tongue-in-cheek answer.

This stupid question is in the form of an email from a guy who has bomb shelters on his mind. I don’t know whether he has been inspired by the Myan calendar ending on December 21^st this year, the threat of a large asteroid hurtling towards our planet, or the outbreak of World War 3, but he’s definitely worried about the end of the world and thinking about how best to prepare.

It’s also a good example of how stupid people ALWAYS over complicate everything, and that is particularly true of bureaucrats who needlessly over complicate our lives with regulations and then employ other knuckleheads to enforce them.

Here it is. Enjoy.

Query:

“Some people who believe the world will end soon are building (or having them built) enormous underground shelters that rival traditional homes in cost and amenities.

I’m looking for insurers to discuss insurance for these elaborate shelters.

What’s insurable? What’s not? What if the shelter is adjacent to your home or at a separate location? Etc, etc.”

Reply:

Dear Mr XXXXX

I’ve been in mortgages and finance for over 20 years, and have fought with insurance companies on a regular basis over things like “it’s on the top of a hill, it doesn’t need flood insurance” and “it’s made of steel and has a steel roof, the fire risk is about zero” and so forth.

First, if the world DOES end (right) it will be considered an “act of god” and the insurance company won’t pay off, assuming they survive the end of the world in the first place. (Betcha you didn’t know insurance companies believe in God.)

Second, it is a pretty sad bomb shelter that needs to be insured against ANYTHING – I mean this thing is supposed to take a direct hit by a nuclear weapon without so much as rattling the silverware inside, so what else would you POSSIBLY need to insure it against? Termites?

Third, insurance companies have a very difficult time rating unconventional structures. While they could rate the masonry construction part, an underground bomb shelter isn’t going to have hurricane clips on the roof trusses (rate goes up), isn’t going to have hurricane shutters for the windows (rate goes up) and likely has a flat (instead of gable) roof (rate goes up). The fact that the flat roof is made of six foot thick steel reinforced concrete isn’t important, the only thing that is important to them is that it is flat.

If the structure is financed, the lender is going to insist on insurance. Evidently the banks also do not expect to let a minor, trivial event like the end of the world interfere with their lending policies and business practices. If the world does end, they fully expect to be the loss payee, notwithstanding.

If it is adjacent to the owner’s home it becomes an accessory structure. If it is in another location, it would be considered a vacant second home (because renting it out sort of defeats the purpose), and insurance companies consider that very risky, and rate accordingly.

The “fire” portion of the policy is based on the distance from the nearest fire hydrant or fire station. The absolute and total lack of flammability of the bomb shelter isn’t as important as the distance.

 

Personally, I’d just build it, and leave the banks and insurance companies completely out of it.
They’re not going to be any help.

 

Yours Faithfully,

XXXXX XXXXXX

 

Have you had similar experiences? Send them along. Let the world know what is happening before it is too late.