One of the most fun aspects of my job — for me — is learning about new things. The sheer range of jobs and businesses in existence is as impressive to me as the variety of plants and animals in existence.
But sometimes the jargon used is a bit mind-boggling.
We’re currently working on a website for a company that sells kidnap and ransom insurance. This is a special type of insurance which may sometimes be legally required under a law growing out of the 1927 Longshoreman’s Act, and that’s a sentence I never could have predicted I would someday write.
Congress did a study to see whether it would save money for the government to take this over, or to choose a Single Provider and contract them to do it all, but it turns out that it wasn’t cheaper to do it that way, so private insurance companies offer insurance which pays not only a ransom, but the cost of negotiators, and of getting the kidnap victim home after their rescue, and sundry other expenses of that kind. Individuals can get this insurance, but it’s often companies that get it for their workers.
This is so ordinary that there is an acronym: KRE, for “kidnap, ransom, extortion.” They also talk about Special Danger and Reasonable Recreation.
On reflection, I think it’s possible that this is two bits of jargon. That is, there may be something they often talk about as Special Danger, and there may be something else, a doctrine of Reasonable Recreation that lets insurance companies refuse to cover people who think it’s fun to into terrorist hideouts with paintball guns or something.
However, I saw the phrase as “areas of Special Danger and Reasonable Recreation,” as though these were places. Like, “Would you prefer to go to a beach or to an area of Special Danger and Reasonable Recreation today?”
#2 daughter got in last night with her new puppy. #1 daughter and #1 son joined us for pizza and conversation and the little dog got to know our bigger dogs. Today, #1 daughter will be bringing over her tiny puppy for some Dog Madness. I don’t anticipate any Special Danger, but I do plan on Reasonable Recreation.