Some one needed to teach Terry the ropes of the business. That is why Dave was placed in the position as the claims manager. He'd be in the office and could assist Terry with the transition. It did not become crystal clear to me until Terry took me aside and wanted to know why I could not get applications in the door. He set up an appointment with an old friend who was an agent in Fort Wayne, he wanted all the agents there for a round table and he gave a presentation. Within minutes after the presentation, the agents were flipping applications on the table and walking out. I discovered he had asked his friend a favor, have the application filled out before he got there. He wanted to impress me, to show me how easy it was. It was underhanded, but that was beside the point.
I was looking at them on the drive home and noted we didn't write a lot of the business that the applications were for. "I told you to bring me five applications a week, Cindy. I didn't say they had to be for business we wrote."
That made no sense to me. I didn't have to worry though, come Monday morning he informed me I'd be the claims manager again and then he shared with me his secret. I would be given so much a month in money to reserve on claims, regardless of whether I needed more, he would give me a figure and I had to keep the reserve within that amount. He was manipulating the experience mod and I knew it meant trouble in the long run. A reserve is money an insurance company sets aside to pay a claim. It is evaluated for what it is worth and that money is not to be used for any other reason. If he had made a promise that he could improve the loss ratio, this was how he was going to do it.
"What's in it for me?" I asked. I knew he'd hang me out to dry if this went south, so I needed to know what he had in mind.
"Your job."
"I already told you, I don't need this job and you are asking me to compromise my values. I am not comfortable with that."
"How about for every month you do as you are told, I'll give you an extra day off."
I had to think about this. I knew the case load was old and so there was a lot of money that could be closed down, again, it is all in the timing. You have to play a game of robbing Peter to pay Paul. I figured I had four months before the game became very difficult to play."
"What happens when I can't do what you are asking?"
"You'll get fired." He said it so matter of fact it chilled my bones. He didn't know who he was playing with.
"OK. You let me know each month what I need to do and I'll give it my best, in return, a day off every month I hit it."
We agreed and I started cleaning house. There was a lot of fluff in reserves as files had been open longer than they needed to be. I wasn't dumb though. Terry's office was right next door to mine. We had a great relationship, but every month I needed the number, I emailed him and every month, he responded with the number and it was always the same, $150,000.00.
I was doing fine until April. Had I not had a royal dress down from Joe, the President, prior to Terry's hiring, I could have made it last longer, but I knew Joe was watching closely to see if the claims were being addressed.
In April, I sent Terry an email and asked for the number. It was the same and I reserved more than what he gave me, I had to. He wrote back a scathing email that stated if I didn't do what he said, he'd "fire me."
This went on for eighteen months. Senior Management had just met with the Board to announce how great we were doing. Terry's number manipulation was working on paper, but not in real life. I kept a log of files that were under reserved taped on my computer so when I closed a file, I could transfer that money to the file. It was an accounting nightmare.
Several month's Terry would be out of the office and would call me with the number, I made a note of the date and time so that if I needed to, I could give this information to whomever would want it, so they could listen to the phone conversation of him giving me the directive.
After that first audit, they were to re-audit the files six months later, but they didn't feel the need, they had hired a new general manager and by the looks on paper, he was doing a great job. Eighteen months later, they came into my office to inform me they were going to audit my files. I took the list taped on my computer and handed it to the Senior Vice President, "You might want to start with these, they are extremely under reserved."
He looked at me puzzled. "What do you mean? Why are they not reserved right?"
"I have been told for the last eighteen months just how much money I have to put up each month. Apparently, we don't have the money to reserve them."
Again, he looked perplexed, "We don't have the money? Who told you this?"
"Terry."
"Why didn't you come to us when this was happening and tell us?"
"Well, you audited these files in November 2001 and I got a royal dress down for someone else's work. You transferred me to another department for a month and hired a new general manager who told me that I'd better do what he said, or he would fire me. I expected you to re-audit those files six months later and you would have seen the writing on the wall, but you didn't come back for eighteen months and now there is a major problem."
"You should have told someone."
"I was new. No one came to me to see how things were going and I sure wasn't going to go to Joe after he beat me down for work I didn't perform. No, this is on the big guys who turned their back on the new manager they hired to clean things up. He cleaned things up, trust me. And if you want, I'll give you the paper trail and the phone calls. I have been keeping track since the day he started."
"I don't believe you, I need to talk to Joe and get back with you."
I waited long enough for him to get back to his ivory pillar and then I started sending every email that I had sent to Terry and his response one by one to the Vice President. I sent an email listing all the phone calls, the time and dates they took place and I sat back and waited. I was not going down for anyone.
Terry was called up first. He came back and closed his door. I was called up next. He hung me out to dry. He told them after he was confronted that he "would talk to me as I must have misunderstood his directive." The problem was me.
They called me in and told me what he said. "Are you trying to get me to confess to something? I think the documents speak for themselves and the month in April 2002, that I did not follow his directive, there is the email that threatens my employment. I'm thinking you may want to rethink this, cause I have these emails off site in case you want to do any more manipulating."
I was told to have no contact with Terry until this investigation was over. Terry, who was extremely cocky stayed behind closed doors for two days and then he asked me to come into his office and he closed the door.
"You know the shit has hit the fan? We have to get our stories straight so that we are both on the same page. What have you told them?"
I got up and strolled to the window, looking at downtown Indianapolis. "It's going to be another beautiful day, isn't it?"
"Cindy, I don't care about the fucking weather, we need to make a plan here and stick to it to save both of our asses!"
"Terry, I've been told to not talk to you about work. I can talk about the weather, I can talk about your daughters and I can talk about moles in you back yard, but I will not talk about work." I walked to the door and left.
By the end of the week, they had concluded their investigation. I am surprised it took that long. Joe came into my office and closed the door. My office was like a sauna on a good day but when you closed the door, oy it turned into a broiler. Joe, who had played professional baseball for a short period of time, was Italian, slicked hair, fake tan, well groomed, athletic and toned, capped teeth, he was the image of what one would expect a wealthy man to look like, but he had that vertically challenge thing working against him.
He wanted to know why I had taken notes as soon as I started working for Terry. "Cindy, I hired this man and I never suspected he'd pull this! I checked his credentials, nothing but stellar comments, how did you know to start keeping track of this from day one?"
"Never trust some one who threatens your livelihood or asks you to compromise your values and I've been around the block long enough that I knew his cards would tumble and he'd hang me out to dry because I was the one responsible for changing the reserve. I figured if you guys came back in six months like you had promised me you would, this would have been detected, but you weren't watching the hen house and shit happened."
"When I was younger, I would have fired him on the spot, but he's got a family and kids going to college. I can't do that."
I was thinking if the shoe were on my foot, he'd have fired me in a nano second, but he didn't hire me, someone else did. I wondered what it was like to be in the good old boy club, where you watch each others backs. Had I not had all of this documented, I would have emptied my office the day they discovered this.
"I'm going to give Terry a lateral transfer to sales and you will report to Charlie. You'll have to help him, he doesn't know much about comp and he and Terry are good pals, so he's going to be taken back by this bit of news. You will remain the claims manager and I'd like for you to get these files reserved as soon as possible."
"OK."
"And Cindy, we keep this between us. I just reported to the Board that we were a million in the black, I don't want to have to report to them that I was wrong."
So, now I'm covering your ass. Interesting how office politics play out. You never know if one day the man you report to will be under you or higher up on the ladder, but one thing for sure, they all want you to cover their tracks when the shit hits the fan.
The thoughts that wander through my mind. Some have suggested I write a book. I think I'll blog first
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