Here are our top 10 most surprising insurance policies…
1. When supermodel, Heidi Klum decided to insure her world-famous, and never-ending legs, she flew to London to be “inspected” by underwriters. The strangest part? Her legs were valued at £1.5 million as a pair, although individually, one leg is worth £130,000 less than the other. (The less expensive leg has a tiny, tiny scar on it.)
While not a paltry sum, Klum may be slightly disheartened to find out that Mariah Carey’s legs were insured by Gillette for an enormous sum of $1 billion
2. In 1984, Dr. Peter Brass claimed that 150 people a year died after being hit on the head by falling coconuts. Shortly afterwards, a UK travel company, took out an unusual policy; “injury by falling coconut insurance”. One of their customers visiting Sri Lanka was subsequently hit on the head by a falling coconut and successfully made a claim.
3. Full disclosure, this next insurance policy is pure gossip, but it was too good not to share. Rumour has it that Welsh singing legend, Tom Jones, took out an insurance policy against the loss of his infamous chest hair for a massive £3.5 million. Mr Jones has yet to issue comment.
As Aegon are based in Edinburgh, we thought it imperative to find an example of bizarre insurance policies on our home turf. Lo and behold, we found not one, but two.
4. In 2006, three Scottish sisters were insured against the possibility of a virgin birth in the event of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. While the £1 million policy was withdrawn after numerous challenges by the Catholic Church, it was too unusual a policy to be left off the list.
5. The myth of ’Nessie’, the Loch Ness Monster has long since been a beloved tale believed by locals and tourists alike. In 1971, Scottish whisky company, Cutty Sark, decided to capitalise and offered a £1 million prize to whoever managed to capture the mythical beast. The whisky company soon broke into a cold sweat at the prospect of dolling out the reward, and so insured the competition. (The underwriters insisted that if Nessie was captured successfully, the monster would have to be verified by the curators of the National History Museum and would, thereafter, be their property.) Nessie continues to roam free.
6. Now, we love a dance as much as the next financial services company, but insuring our feet? Lord of the Dance himself, Michael Flatley, apparently had his feet insured for £25 million.
7. Small business owners, listen up. Did you know that there is such a thing as Lottery Winner’s Insurance? Think about your weekly sweepstake, what happens if (or when, thinking positively!) some of your workforce hit the jackpot and decided never to come in to work again? Lottery Winners Insurance is designed to pay for things like hiring temporary staff and training new employees. Unfortunately, it only covers you if two of more of your employees leave work due to a win, at the same time – safe to say that odds are against you.
8. Gene Simmons – famous for his notably long, and overexposed, tongue. In the 1970’s, when the Kiss frontman was at the peak of his career, Simmons insured his tongue for $1 million. We will leave you to make your own assumptions about the requirement for this particular policy.
As you know, we are part of Aegon N.V, an international financial provider based in The Netherlands. And so we go to Holland…
9. Dutchman, Ilja Gort, owner of Chateau de le Garde in Bordeaux, has an insurance policy against…his nose. The £3.8 million policy protects his precious noggin against damage, providing he doesn’t take part in; a) winter sports b) a boxing match, or c) fire breathing. The policy covers Ilja for a complete loss of smell. After all, as he said, there is"a chateau of people hanging on (his) nose."
10. Although you might envisage that a midnight trip to Mars might be covered by your travel insurance, in all likelihood, it’s not. However, if UFO abduction is a concern, there are more options for you thank you may think. While Lloyds of London claim to have around 20,000 insurance policies covering UFO or alien abduction, in order to make a claim, you need to take a lie detector test and have a third party witness to get your pay-out.
What’s worth insuring?
With an array of weird and wonderful insurance policies out there, insuring our retirement income in case we run out of money seems positively boring. However, it’s actually far more likely that you’ll claim on this, rather than for being abducted by an alien or reeling in Nessie on your fishing line.
So when you consider what some people want to protect, protecting income in retirement suddenly seems quite sensible.
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