Down to mirth

Insurance is a serous business, with contingent commissions, credit scoring and natural disasters making news in 2006. It’s not easy finding humor in the headlines. Yet a few stories that brought a smile snuck through the disasters and dire warnings last year. We’re not guaranteeing belly laughs, for sure, but they do provide 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 did. Polling some 1,818 adults, Budget determined that 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.

Because 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.

Across the Pacific, about 50 lawyers attending the American Bar Association convention in Honolulu scheduled their yearly National Lawyers on Longboards Surfing Contest, only to have the contest sponsor pull out. The ABA said it officially wouldn’t back the event for “liability reasons.” Seems the group was afraid of the event turning into an annual surf ‘n sue.

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, claimed one study. 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 suffered by those who live with snorers.

Seems lawyers strived to make us laugh last year, because in another news story, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America changed 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?”

Finally in 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 you much joy and a whole lot to smile about. Cuchi-Cuchi.