This claim was from our PCS to Florida. Her habit from previous PCSs was to meticulously document every scrape and ding on furniture, and then use a 'full replacement value' clause in the insurance contract to extract original purchase price of an expensive analog for that furniture. I cannot overstate how much effort she put into this one. I even caught her trying to hide a coffee table/chest in the closet prior to a claims adjustor's visit! I told her off and told her to stop, and she said she would. Turns out that was a lie. The (already overworked) claims folks must have figured that it was too much work to pursue charges against her.
You are bang-on your assessments, again. But I do think she planned on coming back. If she didn't, she'd have pawned everything she owned and taken the car title to a title loan office. My best guess remains that she planned on disappearing as a legal gambit...but did not plan on the level of publicity and repercussions for doing so. Now she's stuck wondering how to come back - will waiting make it better or worse? And if she does come back - how will she deal with the social, pride, and legal consequences of this stunt?
