The tired old voice said, “Delaney. Bud Delaney. I sold that man his policy in 1974 and I never had a better customer. What is this about 2019?”
I told him about the tornado, and the roof, and the adjuster who said the business and the Bel Air were not covered, and the check for a fraction of what we needed.
“Now you listen to me,” he said, and his voice woke right up. “In 2019 Bud called me because the company sent out one of those automatic policy change notices. He was worried the garage and that car were being dropped. I told him not to worry. I added a rider myself, a specific endorsement covering the shop and the Bel Air by name. And I did something I always did with Bud. I wrote down the date and time of the call and put a copy of the endorsement in his file and mailed him one too.”
“That is the envelope,” I said. “In the glove box. With your letterhead.”
“Open it,” he said.
I opened it, and there was the endorsement, signed and dated, listing the body shop and one 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, covered in full.
The adjuster said the company had never lost one of these. He had never met an old agent who kept his notes.
The agent was eighty-one, and he drove up from Branson with his file box and sat across from the insurance companys lawyers and laid out the call log, the endorsement, and his own sworn statement. The adjuster had been reading an old version of the policy, the one Bud had called in 2019 to fix.
They paid the claim in full. The garage, the roof, and the car.
I had the Bel Air restored by a young man Bud once trained, and the first drive I took in it was out to Branson, to take an old agent to lunch. Bud always said that glove box was the safest place in Missouri. He was right about that, same as he was right about the man he bought the policy from.