I was in the supermarket not long ago and had a lot of items -- definitely too many for the self-serve check-out.  It would have been a nightmare: The machine stopping constantly, telling me to wait for the attendant, who then walks over, and has a look on his or her face that says – whatever caused the breakdown, was definitely my fault.

Then there would have been accusations that I was trying to steal something: “Please remove the unscanned item from the bag.”  I scanned it, you &*%#@ machine!  And watch it buddy, that’s defamatory!  And, I had several kinds of fruit in my cart.  Oh man, you know what happens where there’s no bar code?   Wait, are these the organic kind?  Do you push the yam button for a sweat potato?

So with self-serve not an option, I got in line in the old-fashioned aisle.  To occupy myself, I picked up The National Enquirer and read the various shocking headlines. 

And then it hit me -- A Coverage Opinions contest: Outlandish insurance coverage headlines that you would see on the cover of the Coverage Enquirer, an insurance coverage supermarket tabloid.

Here are a few that I came up with:

• Court Excuses 14-Year Late Notice – Policyholder Included An Apology Note In Its Tender

• Court Allows Psychic Premonitions As Extrinsic Evidence To Find A Duty To Defend

• N.Y. Court: Not Bad Faith For Insurer To Use Magic 8 Ball To Make Coverage Determination

• George Clooney To Play Maniloff in Insurance Key Issues Movie [wait, that’s not so outlandish]

• Ancient Documents Discovered: Noah Argued Flood Exclusion Was Ambiguous  

Contest

Send me a shocking insurance coverage headline that you would see on the cover of an insurance coverage supermarket tabloid.  Send as many as you’d like.  It can be policyholder-centric, insurer-centric, lean toward no side, whatever you’d like.  There are no rules here.  This isn’t exactly the Publisher’s Clearinghouse.  If you have a question, don’t ask, do whatever you want.  Just keep it clean.  Like all first-time CO contests, this could be a huge success -- or a compete bust.

The prize for the best entry will be a copy of the 5th edition of Insurance Key Issues.  Or, if the winner prefers, an autographed copy of John Grisham’s next novel, which is due out in October.  This is assuming I can get my hands on one, which I should be able to.