Valued Clients and Policyholders of First Liberty Insurance:

We know these unprecedented times are difficult for everyone. I wanted to take a moment to explain how First Liberty Insurance is keeping you, our customers, protected during this tumultuous period.

We are aware many of you have lost your jobs due to the pandemic, and the job market is very difficult as the current situation has adversely impacted businesses across most industries. Keeping our focus on our customers, we are pleased to announce a new initiative—a premium payment leniency policy. We will allow a one-time late payment of no more than twelve hours past your payment due date, subject to your policy not having had any missed payments, prepaying your premiums for the next three years, and a perfect claim history (to be clear, this means you’ve never submitted a claim, of any kind, at any point, to any insurance company, not just us).

If you meet these reasonable prerequisites, you can miss your next premium payment by twelve hours. You will be required to pay a $50 convenience fee, but just imagine what you can do with the money still in your pocket for an additional twelve hours. Invest it in a mask or sanitizer company. Go out to dinner wearing a mask seated two tables away from your significant other and/or friends in a deserted restaurant. Go to a local movie theater offering viewings of Fatal Attraction, Ishtar, Gigli, or The Goonies. The possibilities are endless.

Needless to say, we are still a business, and there has to be a limit to our generosity. If you fail to pay within the twelve hour grace period, your policy will be forfeited, your house will be repossessed, and you will be required to name First Liberty Insurance as the sole beneficiary of your will. First Liberty shall have the unilateral and final determination of whether your payment is made within the leniency window. Our clocks do run forty-two minutes fast every hour. And we may also choose to arbitrarily select any time zone to make the determination of whether your premium payment was timely.

It has come to our attention that some of you have attempted to make medical claims due to you or your family member incurring medical expenses after contracting COVID-19. Regretfully, as you are surely aware, COVID-19 is a Chinese-made virus. The President has specifically stated (well, tweeted) that COVID-19 is “a Communist virus created when the Chinese, in collaboration with the Democratic party, sucked the blood out of rabid bats and tea-bagged a diseased anteater.”

In light of the foregoing, we regret to inform you that no expenses incurred due to the Coronavirus are covered under your applicable policy. Our policies have specific exclusions for “dirty Communists, “exports from China or from places where the residents might be confused with being Chinese (e.g., Japan, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and much of San Francisco),” “any diseases created or spread by sexual acts with animals or anyone who has ever touched or eaten an animal,” and “viruses that have numbers in their names.”

We are also aware that some of you holding business interruption policies have attempted to make claims under “force majeure” or “act of God claims” due to the impact of COVID-19 on your business operations. While at first glance the force majeure clause in our policies covers “pandemics,” we urge you to read the fine print. Footnote 72, in section AAA, subsection XIX, Article 3, specifically defines pandemics (admittedly in Sanskrit, Times New Roman, font -4) as “a global outbreak of a disease that kills every single organism on Earth, including but not limited to people, trees, ants, porcupines, roaches, amoebas, Chupacabras, and the Chinese.” At a minimum, I think we can all agree the Chinese are still alive.

I want to conclude this letter with exciting news that our team couldn’t wait to pass long.  We are making a one-time dividend payment from our petty cash account (accumulated from change collected from our non-working employee lounge vending machine) to each of our policyholders in the amount of $.03. You will receive a check in the mail for this amount within the next 12-96 months.

We hope you are staying safe, strong, and healthy. Thank you for being a loyal customer.

Sincerely,

First Liberty Insurance CEO

P.S. The mailing of the checks for the $.03 dividend requires the payment of a $3 processing fee. We will simply add the additional $2.97 charge to your next premium invoice, and then we will inadvertently add that amount to every subsequent invoice.

Neal Suit is a recovering lawyer. He has short stories published or forthcoming in Literally Stories, Mystery Weekly, Five on the Fifth, Emerge Literary Journal, Blue Lake Review, and (mac)ro(mic), among others. He can be reached on Twitter @SuitNeal.