Unconventional Insurance Policies

illustration of meteorite heading towards earth

When it comes to purchasing insurance, most of us probably focus on auto, homeowners, and health coverage. After all, damage to our cars, our houses, and our wellness can cause catastrophe financial woes. With Halloween just around the corner, we thought we’d highlight some unusual, even weird, insurance policies that you probably didn’t know existed.

Coverage for Asteroids, Meteors, and Falling Satellites

You don’t have to be Chicken Little to think the sky is falling—a surprising amount of space junk tumbles down to earth every year, and meteor strikes happen 5-10 times a year. Still, it’s incredibly unlikely that you or your home will be hit. How is that possible? Think about how much of the planet is uninhabited—71% of the earth is ocean. You’re much more likely to be struck by lightning than an asteroid or satellite part. That being said, most standard home and business policies will cover you in the event of damage-by-space-debris. For auto coverage against meteorites and the like, you’ll need a comprehensive insurance plan.

Chicken Insurance

Move over cats and dogs… Many folks are opening their homes (or yards) to chickens, goats, potbelly pigs, and other unconventional pets. However, most pet insurance covers a small selection of critters. Depending on the type of animal you want insured, you may need to acquire an Exotic Pet plan or Livestock insurance to protect your furry, feathery, and scaly friends.

And if you’re selling or giving away food items that come from these animals, like eggs, milk, or meat, you should consider Farm insurance, which covers the animals and their products, plus supplies, coops/pens, and—most importantly—liability! It’s unlikely that your friends and neighbors would sue over a case of food poisoning, but if the illness is severe and their health insurance ends up shelling out a lot of money for medical care, that insurer may come after you for repayment.

Fantasy Football Insurance

Fantasy Football continues to grow in popularity, with an estimated $7 billion in annual revenue and roughly 59 million players in America and Canada. The average fantasy team owner spends over $500 per season to participate in a league, but some spend considerably more, with league buy-ins of $10,000. The overall success of a Fantasy Football team hinges on the performance and the health of the real-world players. A star quarterback sidelined for half the season due to injury could destroy a fantasy team.

Thanks to some industrious Fantasy Football fans who were tired of losing key players, Fantasy Football insurance was born! A team owner can protect his financial investment by insuring his players, and if any of those players suffer season-ending injuries or health problems, the owner can recoup some money. There are numerous companies carrying this insurance, each with its own list of insurable players and terms for coverage. Insurance is also available for other fantasy sports. And with Fantasy Football having a higher revenue than the NFL, why not? If 10% of team owners are willing to fork over $20 a year to insure just one player, that’s $118 million for the insurance industry!

Party/Event Insurance

When you’re throwing an event like a wedding, bar/bat mitzvah, or music festival at a rented hall or hotel, the venue likely comes with its own liability insurance. However, if you’re putting on an affair somewhere less formal, like your home, on the beach, etc., you should strongly consider purchasing extra coverage for the event.

There are 3 areas of concern when it comes to Event insurance: financial loss due to unexpected cancellation, such as the death of a family member or the venue burning down; liability in case of damages, such as injury of a guest; and alcohol liability, in case consumption leads to injury.

Party and Event insurance isn’t all that unusual… however, we’ve included it here because it applies not just to black-tie events, but also to homemade Haunted Houses, which are popular this time of year. While your homeowners insurance might cover you should someone trip over a fake gravestone in your yard, if you plan to having a lot of foot traffic (and especially if you’re serving adult beverages), you might want to get some extra coverage or risk a fright of the financial kind.

Change of Heart, aka Cold Feet Insurance

While Wedding Insurance might protect you against some forms of cancellation, like if the venue shuts down unexpectedly or the wedding can’t go on due to severe weather, most policies don’t cover runaway brides or grooms. However, Cold Feet Insurance, does… with some stipulations. First, only the person or people paying for the wedding can buy such a policy, and if that happens to be the bride and/or groom, too bad—they are not eligible for the insurance because they are the subjects of the policy. Second, these policies only pay out if the cancellation is done well in advance, like a year before the wedding. Cold Feet Insurance will not help you if the couple splits just before the nuptials. Third, carriers might put a cap on how much the policy will cover… but recovering $25,000 is better than nothing!

Alien Abduction Insurance

Are you kept up at night, worrying about being beamed up to some extraterrestrial airship? Perhaps you should think about Alien Abduction insurance. The only hitch is that you need to furnish evidence that such an abduction occurred in order to make a claim, so keep those smartphones close by!

Some of the companies offering Alien Abduction insurance are clearly doing it for laughs yet they’ve still sold tens of thousands of policies. Other carriers are a bit more serious, albeit still odd. Lloyd’s of London, for example, is famous for insuring just about anything, from the Titanic to Tom Jones’ chest hair, and it would seem they also insure against vampires, werewolves, and aliens. In a recent Gallup study done in the US, 1/3 of respondents said they believe Earth has been visited by alien spacecraft… maybe Lloyd’s isn’t so crazy after all.

All insurance carriers will weigh the risks before writing a policy, but if you have something odd or unusual you’d like coverage for, it never hurts to ask, or to shop around. However, you’re always better off choosing a carrier with experience and a great reputation, like the professionals at Banas & Fickert Insurance Agency. Contact us today to discuss a comprehensive insurance plan for you personal or business needs, however unconventional.