Editor’s Note: Down to mirth

Insurance is a serous business. It’s not easy finding humor in the insurance headlines. But in 2006, a few stories that brought a smile snuck through the disasters and dire warnings. No belly laughs, for sure, but a little relief from the traditional fare.

Why Budget, a U.K. intermediary, would fund a study on the sexual fantasies of British men and women is anyone’s guess. But fund it they did, polling some 1,818 adults. Turns out British men fantasize most, 54 percent, about nurses, presumably in uniforms. British women, 47 percent, fantasize about firemen. Insurance executives were not even on the list.

Since we admire insurance agents who get involved in their communities, we especially liked the story about the U.S. insurance agent who was elected to Italy’s parliament. Italian expatriates from four new electoral districts around the world elected 12 representatives. One of the North and Central America district’s two seats went to Salvatore Ferrigno, 46, an insurance agent from the Philadelphia area who holds dual citizenship.

There was the breaking news that the scent of peppermint or cinnamon may keep drivers more alert and decrease their frustration when behind the wheel.

While lobbyists rail on about big liability awards and the need for tort reform, what are they doing about snoring? Patients who suffer from snoring and sleep apnea also may be suffering from depression and anxiety, and could have trouble concentrating at work, leading to poor performance and even accident claims. The result — a cost to the U.S. economy of more than $88 billion in lost productivity and health care costs, according to Dr. Mansoor Madani, a professor of oral surgery at Temple University in Philadelphia. The study did not address the effects on those who live with snorers.

Business lobbyists got a kick out the Association of Trial Lawyers of America changing its name to the American Association for Justice. American Tort Reform Association General Counsel Victor Schwartz asked, “What’s in a name?” Paraphrasing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Schwartz suggested the makeover would be futile. “Will not a trial lawyer by any other name still find irresistible the sweet smell of self-interested litigation?”

Cheers for the North Texas insurance agent who took on GEICO, even if the giant did eventually squash him with a cease and desist order. Al Boenker of the Al Boenker Insurance Agency started running ads making fun of the GEICO marketing icon, the gecko. The ads include Boenker comparing notes with a gecko costumed actor.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal protected the public from a GEICO television ad starring the “actress,” Charo. Blumenthal worried that viewers would take the ad seriously when it claimed the insurer could repair cars in just a few days so he ordered the gecko factory to pull it off the air. Charo, taken seriously?

OK, we never promised you Borat. But things are bound to get better. Some enterprising insurance types in Virginia with a lot of free time on their hands have launched a company and Web site (www.insuranceisfun.com) on the premise that there are yucks in this business that people aren’t appreciating. They’ll even sell you an Insurance-is-Fun wall clock.

Here’s hoping the new year brings y’all a whole lot to smile about.