A pensioner tried to sue his bosses by claiming his hearing problems must be work-related, but he dropped his case after investigators unmasked him as the singer and guitarist in a rock band, insurers say.
Deliberately hiding the truth or even outright lying on an insurance claim is not a good idea; in many cases the truth really will out (and special investigators can be put onto the case to determine exactly what the truth actually is), and that is exactly what happened to a certain Mr David Romaine when he tried to sue his former employees.
The insurance claim
Mr Romaine, 69, put in an insurance claim for compensation amounting to £5,000. He stated that his hearing had been affected and actually damaged through his work as a fridge engineer during the 1970s and 1980s. If true, this would be a devastating thing to have happened, but perhaps not an unusual one; health and safety at that time was not as stringent as it is today, and many people will have suffered work related injuries that manifest many years later. Hearing problems is a prime example of this.
As part of the routine nature of the insurance claim, Mr Romaine was asked whether he had any noisy hobbies or pastimes. The question was a standard one, and is used to ascertain the severity of the issue and how much of it was due to his working environment. When asked the question, the man said he occasionally strummed an acoustic guitar, but nothing more. This is where it all started to go wrong.
Insurance investigators were tasked with finding out more about the case, and to ensure that Mr Romaine was being truthful about everything. What they discovered changed the entire situation, and forced Romaine to drop the case straight away, which put him in a difficult position.
The investigation
Investigators discovered that not only did Mr Romaine have a love of motorcycles and that he rode them frequently (a hobby that is far from quiet), but he was also the singer and guitarist in a rock band – a very noisy rock band. Once he was told that he had been found out, Mr Romaine dropped his case, which the insurers felt showed that he had intended to defraud them. If found guilty, Romaine could face time in prison for contempt of court.
