Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Now that the pandemic has simmered, insurance data from across the state of Minnesota has been tabulated and the results aren’t good.  During the pandemic, especially the engine block freezing winter months, claims were at all time highs.

Statistics from the only three insurance agencies that actually responded to our inquiries show that the state had seen a 12% increase in home insurance claims and a staggering 21% increase in auto insurance claims. We reached out the representatives from State Farm, American Family, and Dale’s Insurance to investigate further. Dale of Dale’s Insurance was the only one willing to respond.

“The jump in home insurance claims was understandable due to more people working from home and people hunkered down during winter,” explained the 58 year old sole owner and operator of Dale’s Insurance. “But a whopping 24% increase in auto insurance claims really threw me for a loop, ya know?”

Shortly after state wide shelter in place mandates began cruising down the turnpike from Governor Waltz, MNDOT accurately predicted less congestion and accidents when thousands of would be motorists sat parked at home. In turn, the insurance industry shifted into neutral and began offering premium reductions in an effort to curb the financial COVID hit and run Minnesota residents were falling victim too. But as already stated, that wasn’t the reality. So where were all of these new auto claims coming from?  Again we turned to Dale.

“With extra time at home, men are spending a lot more time in their garages around their vehicles. A lot of the auto claims are coming from wives calling me after their husbands have done something stupid. Plain and simple.”

To further support the basis of male stupidity as the culprit, we sifted through the back seat storage bins of his mobile conversion van office. Since the beginning of the pandemic we found a fair number of claims were the result of wanna be mechanics. Others from damages caused by nearby power tool use. But the single most contributing factor may be surprising.

“Overhead squats. Yup, the COVID had all these men turning their garages into home gyms. Problem is,” Dale exclaimed with a smirk, “damn fools didn’t know what the hell they were doing and they dropped all them weights on their vehicles!”

He handed us dozens of photos showing the tell tale signs of bumper plate impacts to hoods and windshields. Something he coined as vehicular abuse.

Photo by Delaney Van on Unsplash

“Hell, about 1 in 3 of those over head squatters ended up double dipping and filing an auto and home insurance claim for the same incident! I’m a small shop and these mocho morons almost forced me to double premiums across the board.  Hell, I still may have to just to cover my losses for 2021!”

If Dale’s Insurance does in fact put the pedal down on premiums to cover losses, you can bet there will be a few gaskets blown. It is unclear if other insurance lenders are contemplating taking similar actions since none of them would return our calls, but if so, it could lead to many men rethinking their terrible squat form.