Can I Insure That?

Insurance.  Let me guess, you have (or have had or will have) health insurance, car insurance, homeowner’s insurance, and/or renter’s insurance.  You may have had wedding insurance, life insurance, pet insurance, malpractice insurance, or trip insurance.  But have you ever even heard of above average snowfall insurance, kidnap and ransom insurance, or image protection insurance?  A couple of these took me by surprise and got me wondering, what exactly can you insure?  It turns out, just about anything.  There are, however, a couple of general rules. 

First, you can't insure against something that is certain to happen.  For example, you can't insure against the sun setting.

Second, you can't insure against something when you have no personal stake in the outcome.  That means I can't insure against Johnny Depp dying.  While I might be very sad to not be able to see more of his movies, I would suffer no monetary loss if he died.  A film production he was working on, however, could get insurance for this because they would be financially damaged if he died.  Many times celebrities or companies they are working with take this one step further by insuring a star's physical assets.  Tina Turner’s legs, Keith Richard’s hands, and Madonna’s breasts have all been insured at one point or another.

You don't have to be a celebrity, though, to insure your physical assets.  Craftspeople who rely on their hands as the tools of their trade can have them insured.  That way, if something happened to injure their hands, they wouldn't be financially ruined while they were unable to work.

Businesses of any size can obtain stop loss insurance for specific events.  For example, if your mom-and-pop ski shop depends on a certain amount of snowfall or a minimum number of days that the slopes are open, you can insure against a below average snowfall.  Average is the key.  You won't be able to get insurance that will cover you for anything less than record breaking snowfall, but an insurer will look at what the average snowfall for the area is and you can collect if the snowfall is far enough below average.

If you depend on your hands for your livelihood, have a small business that could be impacted by outside factors, or have another need like this, think about getting insurance.  It might take some shopping, but you should be able to find it.  A good broker should be able to help you and you can also do quite a lot of research online.  If all else fails you can try Lloyd's of London.

Lloyd’s of London has made a name for itself insuring what would seem uninsurable.
They’ve insured space shuttles, two-headed albino rattlesnakes, and the race horse Secretariat against failing a fertility test.  In the earlier days of film, they even insured moviegoers against death from excessive laughter!  More recently, they've insured someone against seeing a ghost.

In addition to the fanciful and the work-related, there are very real modern day threats that you can get insurance for.  These include terrorism and identity theft.

Getting insurance is all about taking the risk of loss and putting that burden onto someone else.  You might pay car insurance for twenty years without ever having an accident, but when you do, the protection will be worth it.

Related Links:

• Get wedding insurance.
• Find out more about insuring special risks such as kidnapping, lottery ticket errors, judicial delay, and food borne illness.
• Read about some of the things Lloyd's of London has insured.
• Shop for and buy health insurance online.
• Buy identity theft insurance.
• Find out more about the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007.