Now if I had said “Ruff” deal I may have given the game away, however, sticking to the original statement, sometimes when insuring your mobile phone, you do not anticipate that myriad of circumstances that can eventually cause the demise of your beloved mobile phone. We all know that there are times when it just packs up, or you leave it somewhere or it gets stolen. However, having spent a number of years in the insurance industry, I am never surprised by the nature of some claims, in fact claims that are as near to the famous `Act of God` clause in all insurance policies!

The case in point was a colleague of mine who was a real animal lover. She had two cats, a dog and various small rodents in cages as pets. They were all loved equally, had their own names, and could do no wrong.

Imagine my surprise then, when one morning my colleague came blustering into the office with a big red face and immediately went for the office phone. I could not help but overhear the conversation.

“Yes, very funny…you might find all this amusing, but I am NOT amused!” she vented. My usually unflustered colleague had well and truly `lost it` to use modern day parlance. Eventually she finished her call and slammed down the phone. I carefully left it for a few moments before venturing a question.

“Is everything alright?” I posed.

Evidently everything was alright now. It seems that Scrappy, her loving little crossbreed dog had decided to use the mobile phone as a bone, having bitten it all over, she had then buried it in the garden!

It remains without saying that the phone was completely wrecked and my colleague was concerned that her insurance policy would not cover it. It further seems that the claims handler she had called found it amusing that the dog had done this making a few tactless puns. All ended well when he had arranged to send her a replacement handset within 48 hours and complete with her saved phone numbers.

It shows that when insuring your mobile phone you are expecting the cover to be of an insurance kind, and not of the soil kind as in this instance!