*Bam Bam readers, astute observers they are, will readily detect that certain events in the “Story” are dramatized for effect, including the anonymous dialogues below.
In August 2005, the month of Katrina, headquarters in Bloomington was bedlam. For all its awesome power, State Farm could do nothing but watch the leviathan hurricane augur the Gulf, trying to decide which sovereignty it would smash to smithereens. Didn’t really matter, State Farm was sure to hemorrhage its record profits, and the thought of it was killing everyone. No one . . . no select senator, congressman, lobbyist, corrupt federal judge or ex-FBI man could do anything this time.
Katrina was aiming for Louisiana-Mississippi. Hourly alerts spewed out to department heads, permeating every building on the so-called Bloomington “campus.” In the days ahead, scores of corn fed, flat-butted minions – “Stepfords” – the townspeople called them, would be summoned from various corporate divisions: legal, claims, Cat services, underwriting, media relations, data management, etc. Even the draconian “Claims Counsel” would be called into session.
Katrina threatened to burn a hole in the company’s record profits. With 800 in-house lawyers, State Farm had nearly perfected the art of defeating claim payments, but given the scale of Katrina, this simply wouldn’t do here. The situation demanded that the smartest guys in the room come up with a solid mitigation strategy. Continue reading “Federal Flood Coverage, A Love Story”
). That in turn started my life long love affair for music from the generation prior to mine.