THE LAST POST FOR SERVICE IN BLIGHTY
Here’s the latest in my wretched dealings with those people – and things – who are supposed to help make our lives a bit easier in a crisis. This time time it’s the Post Office and their home insurance package.
This is what happened – our gardener, a young and amorous kick-boxing champion with ambitions to be a cage fighting star, was cutting the weeds he’d cultivated in what was once our kitchen herb garden.
Suddenly the glass in one of the patio doors shattered into grand gleaming spider]s webs while emitting eerie brittle groans.
Our gardener, who despite his youth is built like a brick outhouse, let out a girly scream and looked at me in shock. I smiled back at him wanly.
Andrea who was hanging out the washing in the noon-day sun turned and was shocked to see two men looking at each other with trembling knees and frozen half smiles.
Then she saw the patio door and sighed like a deflating balloon. It hadn’t been a brilliant day in so many ways, but mainly because of the ongoing row with the builder over who owns all the rubbish in the barn they are about to take down.
They say its mine because I once owned the barn and I say its theirs because they bought the barn off me two years ago! Strangely they were refusing to take it down until its emptied. This is no skin off my noose, I’d rather have the barn than the building site they are going to replace it with.
Andrea sighed: “Never rains but it pours does it.”
Our manly gardener quivered and said: “It wasn’t me, I was trimming the plants with my back to it!”
All I could think of saying was: “Ooh eck!”
So it was off into the house to phone the Post Office to see if we were insured for a self-destructing patio door.
I got a machine. It asked for my policy number which was 14 digits long … “111100124678-01” …
The machine asked me if I meant “101112456776”. I said no so it asked me to repeat the number … it was man against machine for four minutes while me and a female robot argued over my number.
Next. it wanted my name “Leigh Banks – that’s LEIGH” … the machine asked: “Did you say Leigh BanksLegurhh?” I said “No, Leigh Banks.”
“Did you say Leonard Benchley?”
“Did you say Leg Bonks?”
That went on for a further six minutes until the robot woman got fed up and hung up on me. A couple of minutes later what I took to be a real human being answered the phone: “Hello Post Office insurance, how may I help you?”
“Can you tell me if I’m covered for kamikaze patio doors? I don’t want to make a claim necessarily just see if I can if I decide to.”
He asked for my policy number, name and address, age, date of birth, last claim, mother’s maiden name, how long I had lived at the address, was it my permanent residence? On and on and on we went.
Then he thanked me, paused, seemed to be checking something and came back.
He said: “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that sir.”
For a fleeting moment I thought he was going to quote the Data Protection Act at me but he hadn’t thought it through that far.
What in fact he said was this: “You have to read your policy I’m afraid.”
“But can’t you look it up for me, I’ve just spent half half the day talking rubbish with a builder and playing who-said-wot with your robot woman, that is until she got bored with me and hung up.”
“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t give you that information.”
“Well, how do I find out if I can make a claim if I’ve lost my policy documents?”
And this is what he said: “What you have to do sir is make a claim and in a few days you find out if it is going to pay out – then you’ll know if you’re insured or not.”
“But I don’t know if I want to make a claim yet. I want to know if I;’ll lose my no claims and how much excess I might have and if I can make a claim.”
“I’m sorry sir, I can;’t tell you that. You need to make a claim. Can I help you in any other way?”
I was wrong when I said I thought he was human.
I said: “If I make a claim to find out if I’m insured or not and it turns out that I’m not insured for a smashed patio door which means I’ve made a claim which has been refused – will that remain on my records as a claim and will I lose my no claims anyway.”
His brain clicked but didn’t bother to whirr. He seemed to click for an age … then he said: “I’m sorry sir, I can’t tell you that. Would you like me to put you through to customer services. They’ll be able to help.”
It’s a true story!
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