The Insurance Policy

I could have died yesterday…Great way to start a story, right? Very dramatic, but also true. If you think about it, any one of us could have died yesterday, whether from a massive stroke, a car wreck or, as in my case, a simple trip-and-fall incident. “Stuff” happens, and that is when you are glad you have an insurance policy. I’ll get back to that later…

- Scott Allen

Not long ago I’m helping my better half move some furniture. She has a home staging business, so it is not uncommon for me, or her family and friends, to help move home decor from time to time. We all know the risk in helping is usually just the possibility of sore muscles the next day, certainly not the risk of death or serious injury.

So here’s the story: I was carrying a heavy, awkwardly shaped table out the front door to the borrowed-for-the-day pickup truck. For some unknown reason, the builder of the house included a booby-trap 3-inch-high step to the landing at the front door. Pavers of the same color as the sidewalk camouflage this step. Immediately to the left of the sidewalk is a 2-foot high concrete block decorative retaining wall for the planter in front of the house.

You probably already know where this is headed. Sure enough, I did not see the step as I was leaving the house carrying the table on my right side, and I stepped onto 3 inches of “air.” Okay, I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but carrying the heavy table, and not being a kid anymore, I could have been stepping off the edge of the Grand Canyon the way my body was flung to the left into—you guessed it—the 2-foot-high concrete wall.