Change is something that many people find difficult. Life is full of changes, such as graduations, marriages, new babies, unemployment, and political events across the country. Change can come gradually, over a century or more, or cataclysmically quick, almost overnight. Whether we like it or not, change is a constant, including the way our industry addresses claims.

As a pastime, I serve as head of the tour guild for one of the largest cathedrals in the South. It is a Neo-Gothic structure (meaning it has steel supports and no flying buttresses) built in the 1960s, and is full of 100 or more stained glass “story” windows. One of the questions asked of those taking a tour is where the term “Gothic” came from. We have Gothic buildings, Gothic novels, and even Gothic invasions. To a certain degree, they are all linked.

Those who have read the book or seen the television series on Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth, which is about the construction of a Gothic cathedral in England, may have some idea of where the word comes from. The Eastern Visigoths and the Western Goths had advanced from their homeland along the Baltic in the 4th century, gradually moving into the Roman Empire. By 410, they had advanced far enough to sack Rome, and the Roman Empire began its collapse. What resulted was the Dark Ages.

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