Somebody Finally Did It

**Lew** · February 12th, 2005, 11:11 PM

Let me throw this hypothetical by Reason and LanD (and Greg or anyone else feel free to chime in as well)-

During one of our sessions, we discussed a bunch of "scruples"-esque issues, plus we were given the opportunity to run by the group a few of our own. Rather than make up a hypothetical, I offered a real example. We insured company X for $250K in yearly premium. In the maritime world, this would qualify as a good-sized account, not the biggest, but bigger than most. The catch was, the man who ran the company was...well, let's just say he was never asked to appear on "The View." He didn't like women handling his claims, plain and simple. And when it came time for him to renew, he agreed with our underwriters on premium but wanted an agreement that only one of the males in the office (myself included) would handle his claims.

Our underwriters had no problem with that, they viewed it as 'customer service.' Our claims manager, a woman who had worked her way up through the ranks, insisted otherwise and indicated that only a woman who handle this guy's claims, no matter what underwriting said.

Reason....LanD.....assuming it was your decision to write this account....what would you have done?

**gae** · February 13th, 2005, 09:30 AM

I'll chime in on this...

My first thought is to follow the customer's wishes. Premium = business = jobs = salaries.

That doesn't for a minute mean that the customer isn't a horse's ass, or that he's right to think that women are incompetent. But if companies did business ONLY with people they liked, or people who agree with them, not many places would stay in business.

The customer is a moron. The female claims manager isn't going to change him. "Customer service" is an interesting thing. If I'm a client and I prefer working with A over B, am I discriminating? Yep. But if working with A keeps my business, doesn't B also benefit by working for a more stable company?

Why and how have we gotten to the point where everyone is expected to LIKE everyone else?

**LanDroid** · February 13th, 2005, 03:50 PM

I s'pose I'd go with GAE's reasoning if it were my decision. Except everyone isn't s'posed to LIKE everyone else, just treat them with a certain amount of basic respect, then decide if you like 'em or not...

**cincygreg** · February 14th, 2005, 01:58 AM

Isnt that what equality is all about?

Treating all people as you would want to be treated.

Treat everyone with the same kind of general respect.

It's a two way street though, you cant constantly talk smack about someone and make up stuff and treat them like crap and expect them to treat you with any kind of respect.

Back to the same thing, it's [img]cool.gif[/img] to be proud of who and what you are, but you shouldnt use who or what you are as a way to divide.

Do people call the Irish seperatists when they have a St Patricks Day Parade? Of Course not.

Do people call the Germans seperatists Oktoberfest? No, that would just be dumb.

It's silly to think a goup of straights proffessing their pride in their sexual preferance is any different than a Gay pride week that is celebrated all over this country.

The world would be a boring place if there was only one flavor of ice cream.

I think we should let this one drop or archive it (if we still do that). We've pretty much all said what we think.

[ February 13, 2005 10:11 PM: Message edited by: cincygreg ]

**gae** · February 14th, 2005, 03:43 AM

Basic respect is fine, Lan, but we all come to the table with our own bias and bigotry. That doesn't make it right or acceptable, but it's there.

My point is that in this PC society, if (for instance) I don't like Sarcazmo (and picking on him because I know him IRL and he's of a different orientation than most of the folks I know), he can decide that I don't like him because he's gay.

**reason** · February 14th, 2005, 11:54 AM

Just because Lew's experience at St. Paul is the only example of diversity training provided here, I'll give an alternative example from a friend who works at P&G.

He and about 30 others are being flown to a lodge in mountains outside Denver for two or three days, where they will engage in team building exercises. There, they will not only engage in nonwork activities, but they will partake in exercises that allow the team to know each other better and understand the personalities. Part of the experience will involve diversity training.

This takes place in early March. Will give more specifics when it's all done.

**LanDroid** · February 14th, 2005, 10:04 PM

"Basic respect is fine, Lan, but we all come to the table with our own bias and bigotry. That doesn't make it right or acceptable, but it's there."

Uhhhhh, isn't that a major reason corporations feel the need to spend time & money on diversity training?

**Lew** · February 15th, 2005, 02:19 AM

Well, here's how it turned out....

1) As for the group, the majority was of the belief that we should really work on this guy to make him come around to allowing the broads in our office to handle his claims. But, if he absolutely drew the line, and it meant writing him or not writing him, we should let him go and take the moral 'high ground.'

I can see their point, but I was in the minority that argued otherwise, and my reasoning was simple- obviously, this guy was a sexist bastard who wasn't going to change his ways.

But, St. Paul was a rather female-friendly place to work. At least in the maritime department, if you counted all the offices, there were roughly the same number of males as females. Yes, Reason, the big bigwigs were white males, but there were a lot of high-ranking females, and some women's group rated St. Paul among the best 50 big corporations for women to work for.

Now, our sexist bastard friend was an almost loss-free account. So $250K in premium was...well, that's good for St. Paul. Since St. Paul was so female-friendly, wouldn't it make sense to do what one could to make sure a company like St. Paul stays profitable and healthy, even if it means taking money out of the pocket of companies that aren't female-friendly?

One of the group members asked me would I feel this way if he insisted only whites handled his claims. I couldn't really answer that concretely, which then made me question whether I was sexist in that I was thinking it's wrong to be racist but ok to be sexist. I got confused and tired, and had to go to the Mall of America and sort out my thoughts riding the coaster at Camp Snoopy.

2) In real life, we did write the guy, and verbally (but not in writing) agreed that no dames would be touching his claims. Unfortunately, another insured of ours racked up almost $12M in losses, and within 2 years we had gone out of business. So I mean, there you go....

**reason** · February 15th, 2005, 12:56 PM

I hadn't read your real-life example until now.

My first thought is that this is an off-topic scenario because it is a customer outside the company who is the problem, not an employee. It is not the company's responsibility to provide diversity training to a customer.

The first responsibility of a company is to its shareholders. With that in mind, should St. Paul have taken the business? At first glance, I'd say yes. But doesn't that make St. Paul blatantly complicit in discrimination based on sex, violating federal law? If the customer had said he didn't want a black person handling his claim, there's no way you could have complied. That's discrimination based on race, plain and simple. The customer's request is discrimination based on sex, plain and simple. That's illegal.

Is $250,000 premium worth a juicy lawsuit? Should St. Paul be a company that doles out work based on gender? If I were a shareholder, I'd say ABSOLUTELY NOT. PERIOD!

Too bad that it's posed as an easier decision to discriminate based on gender than by race!

St. Paul should have told the customer that they cannot comply with the customer's request because it is blatant discrmination, leaving them open for lawsuits, not to mention a violation of federal law.

As for the comparison between the bigoted customer's profitable business and the account that lost money, all I can say is that we shouldn't be confusing bad underwriting with the issue of illegal discrimination. Two different topics that should be discussed separately. There's a reason Moodys has St. Paul's bonds on negative outlook, there's a reason why the company has a history of adverse reserve development, and it's not because they didn't accept the business from bigoted customers.

'nuff said.

[ February 15, 2005 01:05 PM: Message edited by: Sarcazmo ]