TMI

Hello All. As soon as I returned back to Louisiana, it seems like I’ve been in double-time. Lots of work to do, and so I haven’t had a lot of time to write.

One of the main things that I’m doing right now is preparing PPIF’s for submission. That stands for Personal Property Inventory Forms. These are the forms that the insured fills out to tell what they lost in the flood. It’s really pretty simple: description of the item, serial numbers of major appliances, age of each item, and replacement cost. Four little items. But I have decided that filling out these forms can be the newest thing in psychological testing, or at least being able to tell a lot about the lives of these people.

First there are the people that don’t listen to the instructions you give them when they get the forms. So you get multiple calls from these folks asking for more instructions. First call goes like this, “Now on the description of the item, am I supposed to write down the size and color and serial number and other details of each item?” No, I told you just to write down a detailed description like “Laundry Basket”…not a green laundry basket, size 1x3x1, made by a 5’4” woman in Peking. The next phone call is “I’ve been writing down when I purchased all these things, like the radio I bought on March 5, 1990 at 11:45 am. But I can’t remember when I bought a bunch of this stuff”. Ok, you idiot, I told you to just write down the approximate age of each item in either single or double digits…as in, that item is 15 YEARS OLD and I don’t care what time you bought it!.

When I finally get the forms, it doesn’t get any better. Some people write down everything. And I mean EVERYTHING! One woman listed “1 box of tampons”. Think that’s compulsive? What about the woman that put every one of her spices as a single line item!

For the most part, it seems to be the women that go overboard on the lists. Although I did have one guy that filled out 26 pages of the items he had in his workshop, down to the number and type of nails he had. But when the men are in charge of the forms, it normally is different. One man didn’t want to bother his wife with the list, so he did it. They’ve been in this house for about 15 years, and had 4 feet of water in the house. So pretty much everything was destroyed. He filled out 2 pages…approximately 28 items. He looked so blank when I told him that it was amazing that his wife could go to work without shoes (there were no shoes on the form which lead me to believe that she didn’t lose any since I knew their closet was flooded). I ended up going with him room by room and suggesting things he might want to add. The best one yet is the guy who listed $20,000 of “lots of tools”. I’m certain that State Farm is not going to accept that one!

So the PPIF’s range from not enough listing to over the top. But there are some that I classify as “too much information”. I would just as soon not know that that senior couple who are so conservative appearing in the outside world apparently have a more …active….life in the bedroom. But hey, my job is just to get the forms ready for submission.

I do have one last word of advice. . Be careful what you own that you are willing to list, because somewhere, there is a person just like me that actually reads and thinks about your list.