There is enough lore about the Mahatma (this sobriquet is so unique I don’t have to use the proper name). Him shedding his upper-wear upon sighting bare-bodied farmers in what is today Tamil Nadu. Him spinning yarn to weave his own fabric, etc.
But never dreamed that he would himself come to help me, then a claims manager in the corporate office of a large insurer, and solve the riddle of a long-pending corporate property claim.
It was 1995. Had just returned from an overseas posting and it was, in the words of the then general manager HR, ‘time to repay the company for all the good things I enjoyed abroad”.
Posted in the technical department as against the norm of all foreign-returned subalterns being put in charge of an operational unit. I was in charge of certain designated regions.
Pending claim
Then, a batchmate called one morning to know the status of a long-pending ‘business interruption’ claim from an automobile manufacturer. The region was not within my jurisdiction but for the sake of batch camaraderie I promised him I would have a look. Fortunately, the desk-in-charge who was a powerful lady was on leave and I could therefore afford to trespass.
The claim was overdue: eight years had passed since the occurrence. Seven bulky files and two days of poring over voluminous, disconnected correspondence (most of them well-timed periodic reminders), was able to zero in on the exact show-stopper issue. Briefly, this was a flood-induced inundation event and manufacturing was interrupted for a couple of weeks before production resumed.
The crux was that they were working more shifts than normal and hence the extra production was taken as additional effort to restore volumes as previous to the incident. “Make up factor”, as the jargon goes. But loss adjuster was blind to the management plea that the extra production was more to meet the increasing demand and hence the loss of production and corresponding lost profits were more than what loss adjuster was willing to admit.
I found that 17 trips were made by various regional office heads to “follow up the claim in head office” — a camouflage for visiting “those who matter in head office” to curry favours.
As a raring-to-go, “foreign- inspired service missionary”, I was fuming at the level of client service, that too to a very long large corporate customer.
Poor batchmate, as a debutant operational head he wanted to let the client know that he had the “right connections” in head office to get things done.
Apparently sitting in front of the Director Finance, he called me on the phone and after an exchange of pleasantries, came to ask, “Hey, what’s happening to the claim?” This was the pressure burst point! I exploded shouting, “Hey XYZ, are you not ashamed to mishandle this claim”… and so on. Twenty years later, he broke the circumstances of his call to me and politely told me that after hearing me that day he had wanted to quit. I could empathise, but too late in the day, of course.
Now back to the rescue act by the Mahatma. Bitten by remorse, after the phone call I revisited all claim correspondence and documentation submitted by the claimant corporate.
Here comes Mahatma
Then the Mahatma dawned! The event was one which occurred at the fag end of October of the particular year, when the returning monsoon hits southern India.
And as luck would have it, as part of production records the manufacturer had submitted daily statistics as well as various notices to labour for extra shifts and so on for a period spanning three months prior and post the event. One such notice caught my attention, and it was the damn “Eureka Moment”, nay “Mahatma Moment”
The management had issued notice for two extra shifts on October 2. The birthday of the Mahatma! A national holiday!
This day was well before the claim occurrence date.
Bingo! Adrenalin pumping, I phoned the loss adjuster to rush into our office.
In the cabin of my vertical head, I confronted the adjuster with this shred of clinching evidence that the manufacturer was working extra shifts even before the loss date – solely to meet the increasing market demand for his vehicles. Hence, whatever extra shifts post-loss cannot be reckoned as “making up the losses”. So, the loss amount has to be recalibrated upwards. QED!
With a vengeance, we instructed the adjuster to produce an addendum in a couple of days, which he promptly did. Loss settled in a fair manner! Eight years of lingering, now over! Thanks to the Mahatma!
My batchmate did not really appreciate my ‘Sherlock Holmes”-ness, when I disclosed this to him recently, as he could not still forget the shock he had on that telephone conversation 20 years back!
Long live the Mahatma’s memory!
raghavan.raja@gmail.com
