Once of my closest friends has told me she has just committed insurance fraud. I am incensed.
We have been close friends for decades and seen each other through all sorts of ups and downs life has thrown at us. She had the benefit of a brilliant education, happy family life, loving parents etc. She has an interesting and stimulating job, is noted in her field, owns her own house, has dc, is not short of money and travels widely.
When we last met up, she told me she had made a false claim on her travel insurance. I don’t want to give too many details but safe to say the claim would be worth at least £1000.
I am absolutely outraged. The more I think about it, the more furious I am. It is fraud. She must have lied through her teeth. She is taking the piss out of all of us who pay our premiums in the hope that we don’t have to claim. My ( and everyone else’s) premiums cost more because of people like her. And she saw fit to tell me...bold as bloody brass!
I as grumpy with her when she blithely told me, said I couldn’t believe she’d done this, but it could have come across as ironic or jokey. And it wasn’t till afterwards that I fully recognised how absolutely fucking angry-making it was. I’m also really angry that she thought it was OK to tell me! I now feel burdened with this information. I haven’t wanted to speak to her since that meeting and I just don’t know what to say, since I am seething.
Thing is...she is a very old and, despite everything, a valued friend. Should I tell her how I feel. And what would I be doing apart from telling her off? I don’t want this to be an end to our friendship, but i don’t feel I can let it go.
I’ve been pondering this on my own, and really don’t know where it leaves our friendship. But there is absolutely no excuse (if ever there is) for what she has done.