letter to unhappy customers Background: Hurricane Sandy caused extensive property damage to customers of Penn National Insurance. When customers submit a claim for property damage to their insurance company, an adjuster from the company inspects the damage and determines if the damage is covered under contractual terms of the insurance policy, or not covered. Much of Sandy's damage came from flood waters. Floods are not covered by private insurance. Only the federal government provides flood insurance coverage. So any policyholders who submitted claims for damages that were caused by flood waters were denied payment under the terms of their insurance policy. State law in New Jersey, where the bulk of Sandy's damage occurred, requires insurance companies to include in their written denial of a customer's claim an explanation of the legal process that the state offers to policyholders whose claims have been denied, allowing them to challenge the declination. In the letters they sent to policyholders whose claims were being denied, Penn National Insurance's local New Jersey claims adjusters failed to include that legal language discussing the appeal process. When management in the company's headquarters realized this, they asked the claims adjusters to issue a second letter to all whose claims had been denied, with an enclosure of an explanation of the appeals process. The draft copy of the letter, below, is what the company's Claims Division proposed sending to policyholders, to make up for the failure to inform policyholders of the legal process that they can follow to challenge the declination of their claim. Writing exercise 1. Is this letter written using the direct order or the indirect order? Is the choice appropriate? 2. Make notations on the letter indicating any deletions you will make and flagging any terms or phrases that you don't like. 3. Rewrite the letter. Dear valued insured: It has come to my attention that you have recently received a denial of coverage letter from our company. This will supplement our recent correspondence in which we informed you that there is no coverage provided for your loss. We sincerely regret that we could not be of assistance to you during these difficult times. Unfortunately, and I hope you can appreciate, we can only pay for those claims in which coverage is provided by the terms and conditions of the insurance contract. Our original coverage declination letter to you did not include certain language that may be relevant in your situation. Please note that we are enclosing language that outlines certain specific appeals processes. If you feel our position is inaccurate and dispute our findings, you may follow the directions as outlined and the matter will be reviewed in further detail. Sincerely, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Marriage proposal written by a successful business writer You are Alexis, female, age 33, and have been best friends with David, male, age 33, for 13 years. In your sophomore year of college, you took a semester abroad study program and met David, who was also a student at your same college. During the semester abroad, you had a passionate eight week romance, which ended in a nasty breakup. When you returned to the United States, you both ended up in several classes together, and you got back onto speaking terms. You ended up as study partners, and forged a close, non-romantic friendship. The friendship strengthened. Your group of female friends got to know David and his group of male friends. You all became inseparable. You confided in each other about your dates with others and shared dating and relationship advice, openly, and without sensing any tensions caused by your prior romantic relationship. Upon graduation, you both moved to the same city and shared an apartment with two other people your age. When your family and friends questioned whether this would lead either to romance or to uncomfortable encounters around the apartment, you both emphatically stated that you were so far beyond the brief romance and so well into the platonic friendship that the living arrangement was ideal. You both enjoyed a purely platonic friendship with each other, without a hint of romantic emotion or physical intimacy. You lived together for five years, in this purely platonic friendship, until your jobs took you to different parts of the country. You had both become highly paid business writers, well known for your business writing skills and sought after by Fortune 500 clients. After you moved apart, you texted constantly, and visited when you could, usually with several other friends in tow. The relationship remained purely platonic. Dave married, at age 29, against your advice, to a manipulative woman who you knew would hurt him. Dave's wife cut him off from you, mistrusting your relationship. This hurt you deeply, and you threw yourself into your job and withdrew from most of your friends. Last week, Dave surprised you with a text saying that his job was bringing him to town and that he had something important to tell you. You arranged to meet for dinner. It seemed as if no time had passed since you had been close friends, together constantly. Dave told you that he had divorced and that he should have listened to your advice. His ex had cleaned his clock and broken his heart. She had divided him from all his friends, including you, and now he faced life without a spouse and without his friends. He had told you that he had something important to tell you, and you assumed that was his announcement of his divorce. But during the dinner discussion, it seemed as if he had something else he wanted to say that he was not able to articulate. He seemed less comfortable talking to you than he had seemed in the old days. You stayed and talked until the restaurant closed. You walked him to the taxi stand, wondering whether you should invite him back to your place, to keep the conversation going, with no intentions of crossing the friendship/romance line. You told yourself you had no romantic feelings for him, so why not ask him to drop by your place so you could keep talking. But you could not think of how to convey that to him. A cab pulled up, and just before he got in the cab, he turned and kissed you. The first kiss since your eight-week romance in your student days, in Prague. The kiss made you wonder whether it was the type that a very long-term friend and long-ago lover could get away with giving to somebody who was now purely a platonic friend, or if there was more than friendship behind it. And as your mind wondered about this, your body gave you the answer to the question, as your heart raced and you became dizzy and had to hold onto Dave tightly to avoid falling off the curb. He pulled away, got into the cab quickly, and disappeared. You knew he was leaving town in the morning, and you stayed up all night wondering what to do. The kiss had brought a rush of feelings and desire that you had no idea would hit you so hard. You froze, not knowing what to do. He experienced the same feelings of confusion, and 10 days passed without either of you contacting the other. You decided to follow your heart. The kiss opened your mind to the feelings in your heart that your mind had suppressed. You needed to be with him for life. You decided to ask him to marry you. You decided to send him a letter, instead of calling and putting him on the spot, or texting, which would seem too impersonal. What did you write to Dave? Exercise: 1. Write the letter. 2. Write a description of your strategy for the letter. Discuss your choice of direct order or indirect order, and why you made the choice