I probably have seen the movie Fiddler on the Roof half a dozentimes. Along with Guys and Dolls, that great Damon Runyan taleabout Nathan Detroit and the Boys, it is one of my favoritemusicals. It is not the song “Sunrise, Sunset” that I like,however, it is the opening theme that repeats throughout the play,where Tevya cries out, “Tradition! Tradition!”

A wonderful thing is tradition. In December, we tend to think alot about traditions.

This past spring, your resident image-smasher again had anopportunity to conduct an eight-week seminar at Emory University,called 21st Century Ethics. Ethics in the 21st century are nodifferent than ethics in any other century. It often boils down todetermining the most responsible option from among severalavailable options, generally the one that will do the least harm.Everyone has his own definition, of course.

One of the things we discuss is the ethics of change. Change isuniversal, impossible to avoid, and usually quite necessary. Whilemost change is good, however, some change is irresponsible and doesharm. That is where the ethics issue gets involved. When it comesto behavior, it is as the Rev. Canon John Mark Wiggers recentlysaid, “When I say to my kids, 'Things have got to change aroundhere,' I'm not thinking about my changing!” It is that other guy wewant to change. How many wives or husbands — or bosses — have metdefeat in that little project?

Vocational Traditions

Ethical traditions are common in many professions. Allphysicians traditionally recite the Hippocratic Oath upon receivingtheir medical degrees. “I will do no harm,” they pledge. “To pleaseno one will I prescribe a deadly drug, nor give advice which maycause his death.” Old Hippocrates had lots of good medicines,narcotics among them, but he never foresaw the abilities of modernmedicine to keep the body alive when the patient was already dead.Presumably the ethical question one has to ask is, “Who, or what,is the patient?”

By tradition, attorneys wore robes and perukes (wigs) in court,just as many clergy still wear clerical collars. Only judges wearrobes in American courts, but the wigs are still common in thecourts of other nations. We associate dress with ethicalbehavior.

Military traditions are well known. Not only are there uniformsand the salute, there are the bugle calls, the ceremonies andformations and marches, songs and hymns that add to the glamour ofa military career. Similar traditions exist in other services, suchas the police and the fire service. Every funeral for a policemanor fireman killed in the line of duty will have a bagpiper, whetherthe deceased was Irish or Scottish or something else entirely.Tradition.

By tradition, Congress opens each day with a prayer and, bytradition, flags are lowered to half-staff if a world leader diesor a disaster occurs. By tradition, there will be a Christmas treeat the White House this month, and an Easter Egg hunt in thespring.

Easter eggs? Tradition again, from old Teutonic mythology: thegoddess, Estra, from whom we derive the words Easter and estrogen,was a large bird. She got mad at her mate and changed him into arabbit. Every year on the Feast of Estra that rabbit would make anest and collect eggs to put in it. Moral? Do not let your mate getmad at you. That can be a good tradition. (Ethical, too.)

Topping Out

Those of us residing in any fairly good-sized town willundoubtedly have witnessed a tradition in the building constructionindustry: the topping out of a newly constructed building. Upthere, five, six, 60, or 100 stories above the street, when theinitial framing of the building is complete, will be an evergreentree. Tradition, reported Walter Woods in a column for the AtlantaJournal-Constitution on April 9, 2005. He described a ceremony thathad taken place 41 stories above Peachtree Street at the new King& Spalding Building. (K& S is a leading Atlanta/Washingtonlaw firm with which many state and federal government officialshave been associated.) After placing “a tiny evergreen tree on theroof of the tallest skyscraper to rise (in Atlanta) in a decade,hundreds of hard hats lined up to eat pork barbecue and coleslaw,win power tools or DVD players in a raffle, and take the rest ofthe day off.”

Woods explained that the celebration that accompanies thecompletion of the ironwork on any new building is an Old Countrytradition with “pagan roots,” like those of the Christmas tree orthat Easter bunny. “Construction is an old, superstitiousindustry,” he wrote. “Work sites buzz with folklore, old wivestales and customs — like the topping-out ceremony — that pass fromjob to job and generation to generation.”

For example, as with most tall buildings, the K&S Buildinghas no 13th floor. Unlucky. “Some builders ink their names on thelast steel beam of a structure's top floor. On job sites forCatholic schools, churches, and hospitals, builders will place asacrament under the foundation to bless the structure.”

He reports that the guy who runs the construction elevator isalways the “unofficial money lender for the other workers,” andthat he also is the one who organizes the regular football pools.Apparently, immigrants who traditionally displayed a tree branch ona completed building “to honor the trees felled for the structure”brought the topping-out ceremony to North America from Scandinavia.Topping out, said Woods, “means that the most dangerous part of thejob is done and, hopefully, you're celebrating that no one's beenhurt or killed.” One person was killed in the construction of theAtlanta Olympic Stadium (now known as Turner Field), and a momentof silence was held at its topping-out ceremony.

Danger, the Common Element

What is a common denominator among vocations that havetraditions such as those of construction, the military, or policeand fire services? One is that there is a high degree of danger inwhat they do, and a good many — unfortunately, far too many — ofthose entering the vocations will leave in coffins, becomingworkers' compensation statistics.

At one time, there were many industries with rituals andtraditions. Certainly, the stone masons come to mind; the legacy ofthose traditions is world-wide freemasonry, discussed to someextent in the best-selling novel by Dan Brown, The DaVinci Code.Masonry played a large part in American history, especially in the19th century, as depicted in the recent film, National Treasure. Aswith their counterparts the ironworkers, stone masons working highon the walls of tall buildings or Gothic cathedrals were exposedconstantly to dangers. Railroaders, sailors in the merchant marine,steel workers, machine and auto assemblers, and early aviators allhad traditions, customs, and superstitions. No one required thelocomotive engineer to wear bib overalls and a blue-and-whitestriped cloth cap. Tradition. Today a leather aviator jacket ishigh fashion. It, too, was once just tradition.

Insurance Traditions

As an insurance historian, your writer has searched for similartraditions among those of us who deal in the losses of ourpolicyholders. There are very few, but one or two of them arerelated to danger. Most of these are associated with theUnderwriters at Lloyd's of London, where many of our ideas aboutundertaking serious risk originated.

Traditionally, the syndicates that write at Lloyd's operate frombooths on the trading floor, where the brokers come and visit,hoping to get a percentage of each risk accepted by theunderwriter. Only the broker is allowed on the floor to meet withthe underwriter. The insured may meet the broker or, perhaps, eventhe underwriter in The Captain's Room, a coffee shop in the NewLloyds. It is reminiscent of when Edward Loyd (yes, just one “l” inhis name) operated a London coffeehouse where sea captains andshippers met with Lombardian risk sellers who would agree to“underwriter” part of the risk for a fee.

By tradition, whenever there is any major news, the underwritersare alerted by the ringing of a bell, salvaged in 1859 from aFrench frigate, La Lutine, that was sunk in 1799 with a cargo ofgold bullion. The bell is rung once for good news, twice for bad.Losses still are inscribed in the Loss Book with a quill pen by a“waiter,” dressed traditionally as a waiter in a 17th centurycoffeehouse.

For a century or more, Lloyd's marine policies began with thewords, “In the Name of God, Amen,” and had the letters SG on thecorner. Many thought this was some Latin reference to good luck,but it was found to be nothing but a reference to the fact that thepolicy insured ships and goods.

By tradition, early fire insurance companies, even in the UnitedStates, issued policies by hanging wooden and metal fire marks oninsured premises — signals to the fire department, which theinsurer generally also operated, that the premises wereinsured.

About as close to a tradition as many American insurers came wastheir trademarks. Those with fire marks often adopted them astrademarks; for example, the four leaden hands in a fireman's carryof Ben Franklin's 1752 Philadelphia Contributionship for theInsuring of Houses Against Fire, the green tree on the fire mark ofa mutual insurer that would not insure a house in a forest, or thered fire engine on the fire mark of another early fire insurer. Thebadge or fire mark of the Insurance Company of North America in1794 was a six-pointed star, but this gave way two years later toan eagle rising from a rock. The company's first fire insurancecustomer, William Beynroth, bought $8,000 worth of protection onGerman dry goods that he kept at his house.

Today, few of the traditional symbols of insurers, thosetrademarks that became common in the 19th and 20th centuries,remain. We still can recognize the Travelers' famous red umbrellaand Hartford's elk, but how many, even now, remember St. Paul'sglobe and clock with the motto, “Serving you around the world,around the clock”? Prudential's Rock of Gibraltar survives, as doesFireman Fund's fireman's hat, but the Continental soldier, with hismusket at the ready, may not be standing sentry duty any longer,nor is Home's key man.

Mt. Etna of little Aetna is now just a part of Cigna, but LadyLiberty still graces Liberty Mutual ads, and American HardwareMutual may still display the open pocket watch. Wausau's littlerailroad station, which once was a Chicago & Northwesterndepot, is gone, but some suggest that the angled lines in Safeco's“S” represent that roof. Of course, there is always the AmericanIndian's head on the Mutual of Omaha ads, and lots of companiesemploy dead presidents, including Washington, Lincoln, and(although he was not a president, at least he signed documents) thescrawl of John Hancock.

An Adjuster's Tradition?

I know of no tradition, symbol, custom, or costume for claimadjusters. Was the meeting at the corner bar on Friday afternoonafter work a tradition? Perhaps. I doubt that is even much of acustom anymore. Now, everybody wants to get out and beat thetraffic to the freeway.

The image of the hard-drinking, tough-talking street adjusterprobably is more a myth than it ever was a reality. Our derby hatsof the 1920s and 30s gave way to the fedoras of the 40s and 50s.Today, it is doubtful whether any claim representative wears muchother than a baseball cap, unless it is snowing outside. Even thetypical coat and tie may be things of the past in many companies.Some even wear flip-flops instead of shoes.

Except for a few property adjusters who are inspecting damagedbuildings or those out on catastrophe duty, there is not muchdanger to our vocation. We do not go out to meet with injuredclaimants much anymore, and it would seem rare for the adjuster tovisit a work site to conduct an investigation, perhaps falling inharm's way. Our biggest danger is that of an auto accident or beingsocked in the kisser by some irate claimant who did not like oursettlement offer. But those hazards are not unique toadjusting.

So, what is our tradition? What rituals can we call our own? No,traditions are not necessary for life, but they do add a bit ofethical pleasure to it.

Ken Brownlee, CPCU, is a former adjuster and risk manager,based in Atlanta. He now authors and edits claim adjustingtextbooks.