People have been asking me how my meeting with the insurance assessor went yesterday. Far better than I expected, is the answer. I’ve been having terrible trouble sleeping all week with anxiety about what sort of proof of ownership the insurance company were going to want, and also with self recrimination for all the stupidity that I’ve described in detail in my previous posts, that I don’t want to revisit here. So don’t make me.
Things didn’t start well when she arrived 15 minutes early for our ten am appointment. It doesn’t sound too early but when you consider I didn’t get to sleep until after three it was quite enough to discompose me. That and the fact that I was still naked from my shower. But from that moment on Michele was lovely. As I walked her around the house and gabbled nonstop about our theories of what happened that night, she smiled and nodded instead of sneering in a disbelieving way. When we sat down in the kitchen so I could present my spreadsheet of photos and receipts, she just copied everything down instead of raising her eyebrows and curling her lip in a skeptical fashion as I’d expected her to do. Of course, the claim hasn’t yet been accepted by the insurance company but she seemed confident. Apparently there have many robberies in the local area in recent weeks with very similar MOs (that’s modus operandi to those less familiar with the criminal underworld than I): very specific with what they take – jewellery and passports only – and in upmarket homes with monitored alarms. So, it’s possible the police may nab the offenders and find a giant stash of jewellery in the next few weeks. I can but hope.
Michele was very sympathetic when I had a little blub about my mother’s necklaces. This was just after she told me I looked like I hadn’t been sleeping which, while true, irked me a little (hadn’t I been told just in the last week that I was both glamorous and a young lady??) She has been robbed herself before, and in her current job has become very suspicious. When she sees strange behaviour when out and about, she’ll take photos and report things to the police. She saw a man a few weeks ago walking along the street with a TV, so she rang the police, assuming he’d stolen it. Turns out he was taking it to a friend’s house so they could watch the rugby. Mind you, she’s less paranoid than her neighbour in the Kapiti town she lives in. This kindly retired lady watches Michele’s house like a hawk, and writes a report each day of any visitors that come to the house, such as delivery vans, in a little notebook. This neighbour has had security cameras installed also, but they are all pointing at Michele’s house. I’m all for neighbourhood watch, but that does seem a little extreme.
So, we are waiting to hear from our insurers but I’ve been feeling much calmer and managed an excellent nights sleep last night. Hooray!