Georgia woman learns reading the fine print can pay off
Insurance firm awards detail-oriented client with $10,000 prize
Donelan Andrews has always been attuned to detail.
“I have a folder for everything,” said Andrews, 59, a high school teacher who lives in Thomaston, Ga.
When she decided to plan a getaway to England with some girlfriends, they purchased travel insurance, as they each had someone in their lives who was elderly or sick. Through the website Squaremouth she bought a policy that cost $454 (U.S.), the lowest price she could find to cover all of her travel costs, should she need to cancel. When the company she bought from, Tin Leg — a subsidiary of Squaremouth — sent her the insurance policy, she sat down to read it.
“I always read all the fine print,” she said, adding that her major in college was consumer economics. “I know I sound like a nerd, but I learned to read contracts so you don’t get taken advantage of.”
Andrews was deep into page seven of the policy when something jumped out at her. “Pays to Read,” read the contract.
It continued: “We estimate that less than 1 per cent of travellers that purchase a travel insurance policy actually read all of their policy information — and we’re working to change that.”
It said the first person to email the company and mention the fine-print contest would win $10,000. Andrews immediately emailed.
On Feb. 12, the day after Andrews sent the email to Squaremouth saying she’d seen the contest hidden in her contract, a representative from the company called her and told her she’d won $10,000. “It was my lucky day,” she said. So why would an insurance company do this? Isn’t fine print the part of the contract the company might not want the consumer to read?
Squaremouth figured that if its customers are informed about the details of their policies, it reduces any miscommunication for filing a claim, spokesperson Jenna Hummer said. The 40-person company, which is based in St. Petersburg, Fla., and began in 2003 as a travel insurance aggregator, started its travel insurance subsidiary, Tin Leg, in 2014.
“We want people to read it because we want people to understand what they’re covered for and not covered for,” Hummer said. “It makes everybody’s life a lot easier.”
In addition to the $10,000 Andrews won, Squaremouth donated $5,000 each to the two Georgia schools Andrews works for — Upson-Lee High School and Lamar County High School — as well as another $10,000 to Reading Is Funda- mental, a children’s literacy charity.
Andrews said the experience has been fun and “kind of crazy.”
“I might start buying lottery tickets,” she said.
Would she read the fine print on those as well?
“Absolutely.”