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I'll say #8: all of the above, except #5 because a contractor cannot waive a deductible, although they may discount their charges in exchange for the ad placement.

I recall policies with no deducible in the early 70's. The deductible was introduced to eliminate small (nuisance) claims.

Disappearing deductible, I have not thought of that in years. That's what Farm Bureau had when I started with them many years ago. It was not difficult to figure out at all. My deductible on our home was $50.00 and on our vehicle, $50.00 collision, and no deductible comp. Man times have changed. They also had a mysterious disappearance endorsement, so if you lost something mysteriously, you had coverage to replace it. Too many instances of people lying about that, so that was dropped after about 5 years. Dishonesty does change policy provisions and coverage. Mold it a good example.

O yes the old PPF (Personal Property Floater) written by the Inland Marine department {not the fire department} Some very interesting claims and I hope I have not told this one before.

A group of ladies had a weekly bridge party and fur stoles were in fashion, seems fox was popular with the head, tail and body intact, just the skin. When the party ended two persons left with the wrong stole and both turned in claims and both were insured by my company .I  was the only adjuster working property claims and I got both.

I determined that the two insureds had just swapped stoles and it was not discoverd for several weeks. I suggested both just make a swap again. This was unexceptable to both and we paid both, and picked up the salvage and took a real large hit as used fox stoles were now passe'.  hmmmm.....

Sounds like one good cat fight amongst a couple of flappers, Ray!  Guess you can afford to tell the story now...I'd be willing to bet your supervisors on that claim have been taking a dirt nap for a long long time. 

Husker cat, no it was really my mentor and supervisior who told me to pay the claim. But I have another story on the same supervisior which will describe our mutual affection.

A small hurricane hit Beaumont, Tx (1957) and when the claims were coming in my supervisior Ruben Ard called and ask how many loss I had received on the xxestate. I advised about 160 seperate rental dwellings. He told me to handle all 160 for this family estate and nothing else and give the other losses to Bill Cason and Lee Adams two old storm troopers. I had been out of property training school that lasted 8 weeks about 2 months.

The dwellings were very run down frame houses that were rented to poor people with goverment assistance checks. Some had not been painted in 40 years and did not have any paint. Some had one layer of 30# felt under wood screen mold to keep the felt in place, some had #90 roll roof, a few had 220 # comp that was 15 years old.

I had to inspect with the oldest son, and we looked at all 160 houses for windstorm damage. It took about 6 days. When all the inspection were over I returned to my office in Houston and began to work up the estimates on all the seperate houses, that had a $100.00 windstorm deductible.

I then returned with my estimate and a proof of loss filled out with the net amount of each payment on each house. Many of the houses damage did not exceed the windstorm ded.; therefore , no payment forthcoming . As I recall all my payments totaled about $10,000 on 160 houses. Mother and son heard my reason for the offer to settle and just stated one word. Unexceptable !

I was flabergasted these seemly intelligent people did not or would not understand  my presentation and accept on the spot. I left got to the nearest pay phone and called Rube and said I was over my head and I had done everything I was taught in school and to take the file over or give to the Texas General adjuster. Rube was very calm and said no you just keep the file and let some time go by and you will be able to figure out some method to close the files. Several days later I got a contractors estimate for about $90.000. Within the next year I got all 160 files closed.

About one year after I had all the windstorm files closed and handled about 500 more complex and simple files behing me. IT was in a homeoffice meeting I ask Rube and the Vice President of property claims why they had treated me this way with the headache of the xxestate files they both smiled and told me their reason.

"Well Ray we selected you from the casualty department to train as a propertry adjuster. We knew you had good  honest judgement, the ability to learn and you were trained the proper way. We also knew you would figure out a way to get these files closed and save us the problem of worry about how you would do the job as we trained you."  WOW... I have never looked back or had a file kicked back since then, IF I did the work the way it should be done.