THERE should be a law against it. There probably is a law against it. But, in recent years, some of Britain's once revered financial institutions seem to have developed a scant disregard for the letter of the aforesaid law.

Now down at Curmudgeon Corner, we have not lost a fortune in the Lloyds of London scandal. We have not, so-to-speak, cashed so many cheques that the bank bounced, as happened with Barings.

For those sort of activities, you need millions to gamble with and that, sadly, is not one of our prerogatives (where are you, the National Lunacy's Great Finger in the Sky?).

We do, however, have insurance policies on which we very rarely claim: the last time was when a cat knocked a heavy planter off our wall onto the bonnet of the stationary family car, which can hardly be put down as an act of dangerous driving.

However, the insurance policy of said car came due last week and, reading though the not-so-small print, we came across these weasel words under a heading of New Terms and Conditions.

They read: "We will not pay for failure or inability of any equipment or any computer programme to recognise or correctly to interpret or process any date as the true and correct date or to continue to function correctly beyond that date."

In other words, the insurance company has suddenly caught onto to the Millennium Bug scare and, arbitrarily, has decided that it has got nothing to do with them.

And as there is a computer buried somewhere in the entrails of our engine, we are on our own if it gives up the ghost on New Year's Eve and refuses to motor into the new Millennium.

Now we have been with this insurance company for more than 10 years. The present car is three years old. When they agreed to insure it, the company entered into a contract which, I presumed, could only be changed when the car was changed.

How would other business function if you agreed to buy a service at a given cost and then, without consultation, the providers decided they didn't like providing you with that service - but still wanted to keep your money?

Sadly, this seems to be standard practice with in the insurance industry these days. They only want to insure people who, under no circumstances, will ever make a claim against them.

They will only give life insurance to healthy people and, if DNA testing becomes widespread, will never risk covering someone whose great-great-great grandad died from a heart condition when the Old Queen (Vickie, I mean) was on the throne.

Yet when it comes to pension policies, they are delighted to sign up 60-cig-a-day boozers who go hand-gliding in their spare time. Reason: they are not likely to last very long so any pensions paid out will be minimal.

A few years ago, there used to be regular TV ad cajoling viewers to "get the strength of the insurance companies around you". Nowadays, any free dosh goes to their shareholders and to Hades with the policy holders. What we really need is an insurance policy against insurers!

The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.