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.
Lynn Pierce, FNP-C is a Risk Management Consultant at Aon Affinity's Nurses Service Organization. Lynn's background includes working in risk management as a director for an insurance carrier, acute care hospitals and integrated healthcare systems. She has also held leadership positions in quality, HIPAA privacy, environmental and patient safety, case management, corporate compliance, Workers' Compensation, and infection prevention. Prior to joining the risk management team at Aon, she worked as a full-time Nurse Practitioner in Georgia, where she lives.
Don Okolie is the global head of underwriting at Genpact, where he leads the growth, development, and market penetration of the practice globally. He has over 20 years of experience in claims adjudication, pricing and analytics, finance and accounting, operations, reinsurance, underwriting operations, project management, change, and transformation. Genpact is the Agentic Operations company helping over 300 insurers across the globe with AI-powered transformation.
Neycho Tepavicharov is co-founder of Flashcloud, a web hosting company. He has spent nearly two decades in the hosting industry and co-founded and sold a hosting company before starting Flashcloud.
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:
