Martin Porchnik could see Jason from Claims approaching the Underwriting area with a yellow file in his hand and a big smirk on his face. A chill went through Martin, as it always did. A yellow file meant a property claim to be paid, and although he would ask not for whom the bell tolled, he still prayed it didn’t toll for he.

“Good afternoon, ‘Underwear’ department. Whose day can I ruin today?” said Jason. “Anybody have a file for Ultimate Diecasting?”

Martin grimaced. He knew that name. Of all the shit files that landed in his lap, that one stuck out in his memory as one of the shittiest.

“Heads are going to roll over this one,” said Jason, looking around with an evil grin.

“Not one of mine,” said Darlene.

“It’s not me,” called Dave from his cubicle at the back.

“It’s me,” said Martin. Everybody looked at him and he shrugged his shoulders. What're ya gonna do?

“Is this the kind of crap you’re writing down here?” Jason parked his bulk next to Martin’s desk, leaning his elbow on the upper shelf. “No wonder I’m so busy paying out the big bucks. I need a dec page, underwriter boy.”

He was what might be called a big galoot. Tallish and stocky going on fat with dark curly hair and thick eyebrows that looked angry or at least sarcastic all the time and a kind of goatee that made him look devilish.

“I haven’t even issued the policy, yet,” Martin said, looking away from Jason's dark eyes and back down at the yellow file that spelled possible doom. Did he have to enjoy it so much?

“Well, what’s the hold up? Let’s get it in gear. Do I have to come down here and crack the whip on you people?”

“It just came in last week.” He dug through his pile of bound submissions waiting to be entered onto the computer.

“Well, that didn’t take long. What have you got for me, so I know how much I have to pay out here? Or did you want me to just give them a blank check?”

“We have a copy of their last year’s dec page from the prior carrier. We bound coverage on the same basis.” Well, he hadn’t, but his boss had. The decs, or policy declarations, which were a listing of the coverages and wordings included, had just landed in his lap, in fact. And right away he had to hand them over to Jason so he could pay the first claim. Delightful.

“Gee, thanks. I guess it’s something. Let me make a copy and I’ll be right back.”

“Can you leave me the claim file?”

“Sure. Read it and weep.” Jason passed him the file and then walked away to the mail room to make his photocopy.

“Thanks,” said Martin. He opened the file with a small feeling of self-satisfaction that he hoped wouldn't show on his face. He wasn't the one who had put them on the risk, so the blame wouldn't fully fall to him, come to that. It gave him a little get out of jail free card, but it was something he had to pretend he didn't think.

Most of what underwriters do in a day is consider risk. They read submissions of potential “risks,” which in his department were businesses they were being asked to insure, and they had to assess the likelihood of having to pay out money because of some misadventure that might befall each. This would be either a lawsuit or a fire or a flood, etc. If you included famine, you would have almost all four horsemen of the Apocalypse. War is excluded. So underwriters choose which businesses to insure and how much money to charge so that, on average, a certain class of business would make money for the company. The general principal of insurance is that the premiums of the many would pay for the losses of the few. So they wrote up business for a whole lot of machine shops across Canada and only a few, like Ultimate Diecasting, would have a claim, and it should all even out and whatever was left over minus expenses was profit. If he did his job right.

So that was most of what underwriters do: consider which risks to get and which ones to keep by renewing. The rest of what they do all day is worry that the risks they have selected will have a big claim and they will be hauled onto the mat to answer for it. Consider risk and worry for a living. Nice work if you can get it. Martin shook his head and tried to concentrate on the claim report.

The date of loss was Sunday, so it had been the previous night. It was a professional hit. The line to the alarm monitoring station had been cut and the bars had been taken out along with the window, which was removed in one piece from the frame. The place was a mess and the only things missing were plans and blueprints from a current job. There would be a payout under “Valuable Papers” and a Business Interruption loss while the plans were reassembled. They would have to pay to have the line repaired and the window replaced. Nothing else stolen or destroyed. That didn't sound right.

This one had disaster written all over it from the start. He remembered when the phone call had come in from the broker, only a week ago, and it hadn’t passed the sniff test from the start.

“Hi, Martin. Listen, I’ve got a piece of new business for you. It’s a machine shop. Do you think you could do it for four thousand bucks?”

“Let me take a look at it. Put some details on paper and fax it over.”

“Can’t you just quote me over the phone?”

“Well, what do they make?”

“Just various metal products.”

“It makes a difference to what we would charge. And I’ll also need construction and protection details on the building to determine the property rate.”

“It’s HCB, steel deck roof, of course. What else? I’m a busy man, Martin. I don’t have time to get into all this detail.”

“I can’t quote over the phone. I’ll need something in writing. Including receipts. Do they sell to the U.S.?”

“What do you think? Everybody sells to the U.S. This is just a little risk, I don’t see the big deal.”

“Sales to the U.S. increases our exposure. You’d better send something over.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

Unbelievable, was his first thought when he had hung up the phone. What do we even need underwriters for, if that’s the way we’re going to deal in insurance? It’s not about the size of the building they occupy, or the number of people they have working for them, their level of training and qualification, or who they sell their products to, or how much they sell, or how much equipment they have and what it costs to replace it, would a key piece of equipment shut down the whole shop while it was being repaired, or whether they deal in cash or credit, or how long a fire would put them out of business, or ten or fifty other things that Jed Johansen wouldn’t think to ask... it’s about a few thousand bucks and a quick sale. Granted, 99% of brokers were diligent and professional and trustworthy, but it was the ones like Jed Johansen that you had to watch or else you ended up in situations like the one he was currently facing.

Jed never did send in a full quote submission, he just went over Martin’s head and spoke to Gerry. “Gerry” was short for Geraldine, his supervisor. She preferred the diminutive, as she didn’t live in the Victorian age. She was tall and confident and blond, and Martin found her easier to deal with than his previous boss. She had an intelligent face and sharp eyes. She was impatient all the time, but kind. From looking at the pictures on the desk of her husband and kids, he imagined she was one of those busy moms who were great with their kids, efficient at work and able to keep the whole world spinning on the end of a stick.

“I just got off the phone with one of the Johansen brothers, I forget which,” Gerry had said when she dropped by his desk not twenty minutes after the first phone call came through. “I bound that risk, the machine shop, for $5000. He’s faxing over last year’s dec page.”

“Oh,” he had said hesitantly. This was very bad form, indeed. Without a written submission, there were no declarations or representations from the broker upon which to rely, and as they say, a verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, ha-ha.

“I know,” said Gerry. “You’re not happy about it.”

Martin shrugged but looked steadily at her. “Not really. I don't like him bypassing me to get to you. You can't be doing all the quotes in the department.”

“I know. It was an accommodation. This is a growth year, and we have got to take it where we can get it. Besides, we can get it inspected and take care of any problems then.”

“When it will be too late to get more premium if we need it.”

“It’ll be fine, Martin. Besides, we’re $5K to the good, instead of nothing, and I want to switch the Johansens on so they’ll start sending us more business.”

“I understand.”

Five thousand dollars? They knew nothing about security, products, contracts, warranties... it would have to be inspected, thought Martin, just as the fax had been dropped off in his IN box.

It was out in Scarberia, their nickname for Scarborough, the north east part of Toronto. It was in a moderately high crime area, big limits on tools and computers, which were the first to go. This was terrible. The Total Insured Value, or TIV, was over $4 million: the company’s money on the line for who knows what. And now a claim, proving him right about his fears.

“Here’s your so-called dec page back.” Jason loomed by his desk again. “Can I have my file back, or were you going to take it home with you?”

“It’s all yours. Why do you think thieves would break into a place like that and not steal any tools or computers? Things with a quick turn around. Those are usually the first to go, and yet these thieves ignored them.”

“What do you think, oh brainy one?”

“I think they knew what they were looking for. All they took was highly specialized diagrams, plans, and design specs. What petty thief takes that?”

“Okay, so what?”

“It sounds suspicious, that’s all. I think you should be careful with this one. It’s bothered me since we wrote it.”

“Well, thanks for the advice. I’m glad you know so much about how to do my job, because you obviously didn’t know how to do yours.”

“Sorry. Just a suggestion.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” said Jason over his shoulder.

When the adjuster had left, Martin quickly composed a fax form and fired it off to the broker: Urgent. Insist that the insured upgrades security system to provide ULC-approved Line Security Level III protection, to prevent a recurrence of this kind of loss. Please advise ASAP how the insured intends to proceed. Our file is in abeyance pending your reply. Then he walked over and knocked on Gerry’s door.

“I know what you’re going to say. I heard about it.”

“I’m not going to say anything. I’m just wondering about this loss. It sounds suspicious to me. No tools or computers stolen. I still don’t think we’ve got the whole story here, and that could mean non-disclosure. In which case we could VOID the policy ab initio.”

“Marty. Get a grip. Bad losses happen to good underwriters. It’s not your fault, and I know that. Leave the investigation to the Claims Department.”

“Okay. I faxed the broker to get the line security in there or else face the hammer.”

“That’s all we can do. Now blow it off. You’ve had bigger losses than this. Besides, it builds character.”

“It builds my stress level is what it does.”

Leaving Gerry to her managing, he returned to his cube feeling dissatisfied. It was a mystery, that was for sure. But if he were reading this mystery in one of his detective novels, he would’ve put it down by now. Too boring. Something about this was not right, but it wasn’t really his place to intrude. Let the Claims Department do their work. They were thorough, Jason’s bluster notwithstanding. If there was something to find, they’d find it. Time to shake this off with a little caloric input.

He sat in the lunchroom quietly munching his sandwich. People came and went, mostly going back to eat at their desks, or going out for lunch. Martin was a fixture in the lunchroom: same time, same lunch, everyday. Lunch was about giving his mind a break. No magazines or TV, no conversation, no stimuli. It wasn’t a Zen thing: be the sandwich, one hand clapping, or whatever. It just felt good to decompress and not think about anything, if he could manage it. Concentrate on the flavor of the sandwich, and the chocolate bar.

It was the chocolate bars that gave him the spare tire, he felt, but he couldn’t stop. They were an addiction. He was about 5'10", pudgy, especially around the gut. The old hairline was slowly retreating on him. At 38 years old, this was right on schedule. Par for the genetic course. Thanks, Grandpa. But it didn’t help that the media was always bombarding women with images of the ideal male, an ideal he couldn’t live up to. Calvin Klein underwear ads had set his self-esteem back a pace, he could admit it now.

He poured another cup of coffee and went back to the cube. He tried to get back into the flow of things, but the stupid loss kept bugging him and he ended up just staring off into space for long periods of time, just trying to crack the code of this puzzle. That was how George, the bicycle courier who did their head office mail run every day found him, lost in thought at his desk.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, picking up the name plate on his desk and flipping it over in his hand, tapping it on the desk. “Where’s my envelope?”

“Hey, go easy on the name plate.”

“Sorry about that. I don’t want to break the last link to your sense of identity.”

“Don’t worry, my name’s sewn into the backs of all my shirts.”

“There you go. You’ll be fine.”

“All right, just let me collect it up.” Martin got up out of his chair, glad for something else to think about and a chance to shoot the breeze with George. He had been doing the pick-ups at their office for a few years now and he and Martin had been out for drinks a couple of times after work. He was a good guy, despite his scary appearance. Tall, sunglasses, white man’s dreadlocks, tattoos, pierced this and that… he wasn’t like Martin’s insurance friends, but that’s what he liked about him. He was different.

“No rush. I’m ahead of schedule today,” said George.

George came with him into the mail room, and talked to him as he gathered up all the envelopes, memos, and various other correspondence, packaged and weighed it all, and wrote out the receiving slip.

“So, rough day, or just hungry?” said George.

“It’s been one of those days. Started out okay, but it all went quickly downhill this afternoon.”

“Sounds like a pretty normal Monday.”

“Yeah, I guess. Well, here it is. Signed, sealed, and now just to be delivered.”

“Thanks. We going for drinks tonight, Marty?”

“Not tonight, but maybe some night this week.”

“Just say the word.” George put on his sunglasses as Martin walked him out through the office and over to the main door. “See ya.”

“Bye, George,” called Janice.

“Bye.” The door closed behind him.

“Whew, he’s cute,” said Janice. “Do you know if he’s single?”

“Um, yes. I mean, yes, I do know he lives with his girlfriend.”

“Too bad. Such a hottie! He can deliver my package anytime.”

Janice was kind of a hottie herself, in that secretary way. Single secretaries exude this air of availability and eagerness, like bridesmaids. She was no supermodel, which Martin didn’t mind. That type of woman intimidated Martin, anyway. They always looked so severe, so hard, with angry-looking cheek bones. He always imagined them as martial arts experts, capable of knocking his block off if he so much as looked at them.

No, she was solidly built, pretty, and seemed fun to be around. Shoulder length blond hair product hair, small features, fair-sized bust and hips. Looking very fertile. In her early 30's, he guessed. But she would probably say no. Look at him. Why would she go out with him? He wasn’t much to look at. And even if they did go out once or twice, something would happen and the whole thing would go to hell, and it would hurt. Then he wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye here at work the next morning. Always have to pretend to check out the paint job on the walls as he walked by her desk. And face the shame of a failed office romance. It wasn’t worth it.

Quietly back across the office, shy glance around, wishing he could turn himself invisible, wanting to escape people’s notice and make it back to the safety of his little cube without anyone confronting him. Feeling strangely persecuted, as if everyone were against him. Couldn’t seem to face anything or anyone right now.