Toes McGraw is the senior adjuster at Purrfect Drop Insurance Assessors. She has handled more than 3,000 claims, sat in 800 sunbeams and been told to get off the table on no fewer than 12,000 occasions.
How she started
Toes joined the company as a trainee, with no experience and a small, rather nice hat. Her first claim involved a pair of reading glasses, which she approached with great seriousness. “I looked at them for two hours,” she says. “Then I looked at the cat. Then I wrote the word ‘obvious’ and went to lunch.”
Her approach
Toes believes in careful, quiet work. She arrives at a scene, scans the room, and sits in the middle of it. She does not ask questions in the first hour. She waits for the household to say too much, which they invariably do.
Her tools
- One clipboard, slightly chewed
- One pen, never used
- One small torch for looking under things
- A handkerchief, for the householder
Her philosophy
“Every broken thing has a reason,” says Toes. “Usually it is me. But I am not allowed to say so, because of the policy.”
She lives with two other cats and a plant she is not allowed to touch. In her spare time she enjoys looking at birds.
On cats and paperwork
Toes has strong views on forms. She believes that every form should be shorter than the incident it describes, and that no form should ask for the same information twice. “If I have to write my own name more than once,” she says, “I stop writing it.” Her reports are known in the office for being brief, accurate and slightly damp.
A typical week
Monday is for reviewing files and sitting on a pile. Tuesday is for home visits, which she dislikes but performs with grace. Wednesday is a day of quiet reflection beside a radiator. On Thursday she sits at the window and looks at the sky for answers. Friday is for tidying her desk, which she does by sweeping everything onto the floor, in the interest of efficiency.
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