Handling travel insurance claims; a company that specialised in coach trips for an older demographic offered a short (half hour) excursion on a fishing boat. The skipper took them as far as the harbour entry via the small boat channel and back again at about 3 knots, quite possibly for the reasons given in the ensuing claims;
The 'reckless captain' apparently gave them all a near death experience by bouncing around like an offshore powerboat at full speed, dodging in and out of destroyers and submarines (in the harbour for small boats) and when somebody decided they didn't really like the smell of Mackerel, what with it literally being a fishing vessel, and threw up, everybody else started puking, screaming, shaking and crying. They all wanted the entirety of their holiday cost refunded, extra compensation, money for a second meal with wine (because they'd vomited up the first) and a free holiday as they hadn't enjoyed the one they'd already had.
One of the claims was from an 86 year old ex Navy man who politely enquired as to whether there was any recompense available for the boat trip - taking into consideration that he'd needed to take care of a boatload of hysterical 75 year olds ''when the rep probably should have carefully explained to them in advance that ships look really big when you aren't on the rowing lake at Battersea Park'', didn't get on it with them, thus leaving said 86 year old responsible for making them sit down and not jump off the side to make a swim for 'safety' (he told them they couldn't jump in because he'd seen a shark - they promptly sat straight down and didn't budge until safely back on the mooring). Oh, and as one of the shriekers knocked his glasses off so they needed a new screw when he got home. We waived the excess and paid the cost of the glasses (about twenty quid IIRC) because we felt a bit sorry for him, the other claimants, who knew nothing of this largesse, threatened to go to the Ombudsman and BBC Watchdog/That's Life with that Lovely Esther Rantzen.
Another insurance claim. Their cool box went missing on the flight and was delivered the following morning to their hotel. Their claim was for replacement tea bags, a jar of Nescafe, two pints of milk, 2lb of sugar, three packets of wafer thin ham, a loaf of bread and half a tub of Flora as they'd gone off. Total cost about a tenner (excess was £25). Oh, and £320 for meals to replace what they'd lost as French shops don't sell bread, milk, ham or margarine and 'you can't trust foreign foods when you have a delicate constitution'. The receipts included steak tartare and three desserts with liqueur coffees, champagne & caviar in the Eiffel Tower Bar and a breakfast costing about £40 each. They didn't appreciate the decline letter as it apparently meant I was telling them that for all I cared, they could have starved to death in Paris for two nights when I advised that unfortunately, the policy did not extend to cover consequential losses and the value of the damaged luggage was below the excess.