Employees working from home during the coronavirus pandemic claimed some outlandish expenses this year, including pricey exercise bikes, facelifts and private jets.
Emburse, an expense management software company, released a compilation Wednesday of some of the craziest expenses it has seen claimed this year, some of which were actually approved. That included $1,895, which was approved as a contribution for an employee's Peloton Bike under the explanation of “for health and wellness.” On the other hand, a $7,600 expense claim for a facelift was submitted under the category of “repairs and maintenance” but was rejected, despite the pressing need to look one’s best during a Zoom meeting.
Sathish Kumar Manimuthu serves as the CTO at NeuralMetrics, an insurtech offering AI-powered risk-assessment intelligence for P&C carriers, brokers, and agents. With experience in launching innovative technology and products for startups and Fortune 500 companies, Sathish is responsible for the company's suite of data-delivery engines and AI models.
Ronen Assia is a Managing Partner at Team8.
Heather Sullivan is the North American Strategy lead for Accenture's Insurance practice, where she spends her time driving new business endeavors on behalf of carriers, brokers, MGAs, private equity organizations and start-ups. She helps organizations understand agency needs, wants, desires, motivators and, ultimately, how to achieve market success. Heather holds a bachelor's degree from University of Southern California. Heather serves several global roles within Accenture, including as the executive sponsor for Accenture's Insurance Strategy diversity and inclusion efforts. Heather resides in Chicago with her husband, daughter and son, and very lively Portuguese Water Dog.
Some expenses weren’t for working from home, but more about getting out of the house safely. An expense claim for a private jet charter costing over $20,000 was submitted and approved under the explanation of “required to limit COVID exposure for international shoots.” Another travel-related expense claim was $2,500 for a helicopter ride, which was not approved.
The $79 expense claim for a dog crate could perhaps be used for travel at some point when that's safer, but in these times it was more plausibly to provide "crate training [for] a new COVID puppy to not run into Zoom meetings."
Below is an infographic produced by Emburse showing this and several other head-scratching claims:
