# 56 WIND OR WATER?

I saw a flick on CNN today about insurance claims in the areas affected by Katrina. At one residence, an Insurance Adjuster was doing a laborious assessment. Her job? To separate wind damage from water damage. Important because this particular insurance policy covered wind damage but not water damage.

So she was trying to explain to the client and define for the client what was and what was NOT eligible for compensation. Now obviously such a task was pretty much an arbitrary exercise. And the client, notwithstanding, no doubt felt forced to accept whatever arbitrary decisions the adjuster made. Who could argue, and how could one argue? The one thing the client felt they could make a case for was the car that was parked under a breezeway and out of the rain. The storm has smashed the car and moved it a considerable distance away. Because it was parked in a sheltered area, surely one could say that loss was due to wind damage. But I expect even that was debatable.

I had to shake my head in dismay. What kind of thinking? The flooding was caused by hurricane winds. Without these powerful winds, there would have been no flood. So how does one separate the two?

That is about as nonsensical as saying that if a wind came up and toppled a large tree on my garage – the damage was due to the tree rather than the wind. It really amounts to the age old question - 'What came first, the chicken or the egg?'

Never took a course in Critical Thinking but maybe I need to cause I just don’t get it. Do you?