After I bought that infamous Plymouth Fury, everyone advised me to purchase an insurance policy for driving. To drive a car around, three things are demanded: a car to drive, driver’s license, and an insurance policy. I bought a car. I had an international driver’s license. The last thing I needed was the insurance policy, which turned out to be the hardest thing to get of all three.
To get the insurance policy, I asked Bob, the ex-owner of the Plymouth Fury, how to get it. He told me that he could take me to an insurance agent’s office that he knew. He looked somewhat concerned when he said so. I just did not care why he was so.
The insurance agent’s office was located in the downtown. Bob took me there. It was a small and narrow-rectangular-shaped office with a long counter accompanied with a few stools. To my surprise, the agent kept a big fluffy dog in the office and it wandered around. I sat on one stool. Bob sat next to me. A fat old lady sat in front of me over the counter. She had already been told that I needed a car insurance policy. She spoke to me incomprehensibly fast. Bob reminded her that I was a foreigner and that my English was poor. She was, of course, aware that I was a foreigner. But she just did not know what she was expected to do to a foreigner. I bet I was the first foreigner she had ever met, and maybe the last. She continued her explanation exactly in the way she started.
Actually I was managing to follow her speech with an enormous concentration, though the fluffy dog wandering around was really bothering. A few technical terms in her words that I did not understand prevented me from a full understanding. After the whole session of the policy description, she asked me if I were with her. I answered, “Not really.” She started all over again.
As I recall now, she did not sound that she chose words in the second try. The technical terms, including “liability,” were still existent. Again she asked me if I became clear, when the explanation was over. Her speech remained the same; my answer remained the same also. She was shocked, probably she had been quite confident of her communication skills. She could never imagine that I was following her with subtle problems of her choice of words.
She suddenly paced down not only her speech speed but also her communicational approach. She began, “OK, Masato. Let me… Ask… Some… Questions!”
“Do you… Have… A… Driver’s!” then, she swung her hands in the air as if she grabs an imaginary steering wheel. She continued, “License?” She formed a card-sized square with her thumbs and pointing fingers.
“Yes, I have one back in Japan. I have an international driver’s license based on the Japanese one.” I answered fluently. Now she sounded more like a foreigner than I was. She felt happy that she finally could communicate with me. She came up with the next question. “Did you… Drive… A… Car… In Japan?” She kept on her peculiar sign language. I immediately replied, “Yes. I drove company cars back in Japan. I have never owned a car by myself.” She happily listened to my reply and continued, “Do you… Study… At… OIT?” The answer came out like reflex, “Yes.”
“OK. What… Is… Your… Major… At… OIT? You know… A major is… What you are… Studying now.” “CSET (pronounced like “see-set”)” She did not understand the abbreviation of my major. “Computer System Engineering Technology.” She smiled and jotted it down.
At first I was entertained by her awkward English with strange gestures. Her pointless questions went on and on. I got tired of them and gradually irritated. I looked down my watch. I could not figure when these silly questions would come to an end. She asked me, “So, Masato. How… Long… Have you… Been… Here?” This was exactly what was in my mind. “30 minutes,” I answered. Bob and two other agents burst into laughter. She was embarrassed and overreacted. “No, no. I Mean… How long… Have you been… In this country?” The series of questions went on and on until I had to go back to school to attend a class. She told me that she would send the price estimates of insurance policy packages.
A few days later, I received an envelope from the agent keeping a fluffy dog. I can not remember how much she set the prices at. Even the price of the least expensive package was surely far more than I could afford back then. Bob called me to check the result. He was concerned with the prices. He had expected that they be quite expensive because insurance agencies would not or could not evaluate how I drove a car. I did not know what to do. I knew many so-called “straight-out-of-high-school kids” driving their cars with affordable policies. The issue stuck in my mind. Whenever people around me greeted saying, “How’s life?” I always had them share the issue often together with how the agent spent the time speaking awkward English.
A helping hand was presented to me all of a sudden. Dean of Housing Department, one day, ate lunch with me in the cafeteria. He heard about my trouble. He said that he could do something. He invited me to his office.
He offered me a seat and started asking questions about me. My full name, address, and birth date. He asked me if I smoked and if I drank. He further inquired me about my GPA. It was my second term. The GPA of the first term was 3.6. He was impressed so much as to let me repeat the figure for a few times. He said, “Let’s see what I can do for you now.”
He picked up the phone and called an insurance agent he knew. “Yes. He is in my office. He’s sitting right in front of me. Yes. That’s right. He’s an OIT student. He just wants to drive around inside of the town, just around where he lives, downtown shopping area, and the school. Uh-huh. He doesn’t smoke. He rarely drinks. He studies computer technology. He aces in the classes all the time. He is practicing his English now. So I am calling you for him. Let me tell you this. His GPA last term was 3.6”
He hung up the phone and turned to me. “Sho, do you know much about underwriters?” He explained the system to me. In short, his recommendation could lower the insurance price. Now that that kind of evaluation can vary the prices of insurance policies in Japan, too. But the idea was very new to me from a country where insurance prices were under government regulations. The price estimate was sent to me a week later. It was only two third of the one I got from the dog feeding insurance agent. Studying hard does pay.