Woman Wins (Hidden) $10,000 For Simply Reading Her Insurance Policy
Sometimes luck is just a scroll away
Maybe that wacky, kind-hearted insurance company owner made an extra $10,000 that month so he wanted to give it away to a lucky customer.
Not a simple lucky, but highly lucky.
So, that ‘lucky’ person is ought to do something different that others find terrible. The owner struck with an idea of hiding that reward money in their policy T&Cs, which I and most probably you don’t read.
Hands down. I have no doubts in saying it. A social experiment by ProPrivacy found that only 1% of people actually read the terms and conditions. However, not many admit it. 70% of people surveyed lied claiming they read the agreement with 33% claiming to have read it thoroughly.
Let me first reveal who that lucky person is, before we go into the details.
A Georgian high school teacher — Donelan Andrews
She naturally reads much and also encourages her students to read more. She often says, “It pays to read”, like in the very her case.
Oftentimes, she puts lines disguised in a big paragraph in question papers that say, “If you’re reading this, skip the next question.”, off and on some instructions that would give students 10 bonus points if they circled the number ⑩ on page 2 or so, thereby encouraging her students to read paragraphs thoroughly.
She claims it helps them in future when signing contracts and gives none a chance to take advantage of her lovely students.
🏆 The Contest — ‘It Pays to Read’:
The camouflaged lines that won her $10,000 were actually part of a secret campaign run by Florida-based insurance company Squaremouth. The company says lack of understanding is one of the biggest reasons travel insurance claims are denied. And that is the reason for (quietly) running the campaign cum contest — To encourage people to read thoroughly.
When six of her friends and Andrews decided to make a trip to England, they purchased a travel insurance from Squaremouth worth $454, which is the lowest price she could find to cover all her needs.
After she purchased it, Tin Leg, a subsidiary of Squaremouth, forwarded her the insurance policy terms (fine print), and she printed out the copy, stapled it neatly and made time to read it.
She must be very patient. Not everyone reads the whole copy. Many just read the highlights and sign it, but the terms written in ₛₘₐₗₗ ₗₑₜₜₑᵣₛ bring lazy people to naught.
🖇 When she started reading,
Deep in page 7, she found a strange line in bold letters. It read — ‘It Pays to Read’. She continued.
“If you’ve read this far, then you are one of the very few Tin Leg customers to review all of our policy documentation.”
“We estimate that less than 1 percent of travellers that purchase a travel insurance policy actually read all of their policy information — and we’re working to change that.”
They said the first person to email the company mentioning the contest would win $10,000. And she immediately emailed.
The next day, a representative from Squaremouth called her to tell she’s the lucky winner of $10,000. She was thrilled to know that. To describe it better, sky would be the lower limit of her joy.
After 23 hours of launch and 73 fine prints sent, Andrews was the first person to contact the company for the prize.
That means 72 people ‘read’ and signed the exact same fine-print before her, and didn’t notice the hidden $10,000.
And next →
What she wanted to do with that jackpot?
Andrews was retiring that year after 25 years of teaching life-skills, and her husband and she were celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary that summer. So they went for a trip to Scotland and Andrews said the jackpot paid for all of that trip.
Squaremouth was kind: 💛
As a part of the contest, the company donated another $10,000 to Reading Is Fundamental — A non-profit organisation that donates books to school children.
Squaremouth was kinder: 💛💛
When they came to know that the winner was actually a school teacher who encourages everyone to read more, they were pleased and donated an additional $10,000 — $5,000 for each of the two schools Andrews works to improve their libraries.
🗣 Andrews’s final say:
Even though a creative contest and a marketing strategy like ‘It Pays to Read’ was never put, it always pays to read. She says a smart consumer always knows what’s he paying for before agreeing for fine-prints.
Most of the cases it goes easy, but when something goes wrong, you can’t question the company, if you don’t read it fully. And there’s nothing shy in reading something before agreeing for it.
📰 Sources:
- How A Georgia Teacher Won $10,000 By Reading The Fine Print : NPR
- She read the fine print on her insurance policy. It won her $10,000 in a contest (tampabay.com)
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