Weird database problem & catching exception

I am using MySQL with Resin. Recently there has been a lot of discussion
on this list about closing database statements and problems. Has anyone
run into this one?

I have this finally statement
finally{
      try{
        // close the statments & DB connection
        insertStatementAdInfoView.close();
        dbConnection.close();
      }catch(Exception e){   // SQLException doesn't work
      System.out.println("Problem with insertStatementAdInfoView " + e);
      }
    }

When I catch an SQLException I get a java.lang.NullPointerException and
it crashes. When I catch with just Exception, I still get a
NullPointerException but the program works! I thought the SQLException
should handle this. Why am I getting a NullPointerException (500 Servlet
Exception)exception when I am just doing an insert into a database? The
insert, inserts the data even with the NullPointerException when
catching it with Exception. What could be causing this exception when I
am simply using a getParameter to read a jsp entry and doing an insert
with a prepared statement?

T.K.