"One size fits all!" I saw that phrase on a pair of garden gloves in a store and couldn't help wondering about it. Surely the label didn't imply that a single glove size perfectly fits everyone, even if the gloves are made of some wondrous space-age material that magically stretches to fit the wearer's hands, regardless of their size. There must be a limit to that boast-some ultimate hand size beyond which those gloves will no longer be viable and, as a result, prove less than effective in properly protecting the wearer.

The same is true of insurance. Apparently some people in our industry subscribe to the "one-size-fits-all" philosophy when it comes to recommending proper protective "clothing" for insureds. Comments I read in e-mail messages and hear in coverage classes (particularly E&O seminars) indicate a growing sense among agency folks that, in many insurance situations, one size does indeed fit all. Therein lie at least two problems. First, there is no such ultimate policy. Second, when asked, those who argue it does exist can't agree on precisely which policy meets the criterion. Houston, we have a problem!

Advocates of the single-perfect-size theory fall into two camps. One believes that certain policy form coverages emerge from the ISO labs fully realized and without blemish. This camp includes, for example, folks who wrote to me about my business income article of a few months back to inform me that, although they found the article somewhat amusing, there really was a simple answer to the issue- write a businessowners policy. Within that most perfect of policies, they argued, business income coverage exists without limits, and extra expense and dependent properties coverages are included as icing on the already sublime cake. One must assume that these same folks have finally found the perfect diet, married the perfect person and possess clear, irrefutable evidence regarding who shot John F. Kennedy.