From Ancient Risk-Sharing to Extraordinary Modern Cover: 20 Surprising Insurance Facts
Written by Darren Carter. Last Updated on September 24, 2026
Insurance has existed in one form or another for thousands of years, and over that time people have found some remarkably inventive ways to transfer risk.
Alongside familiar home, motor and business insurance, history contains policies covering unusual prizes, valuable body parts, sporting competitions and even publicity stunts involving spacecraft.
Some of the examples below are historical, overseas or novelty policies rather than insurance products normally available to UK consumers today. Others reveal how familiar parts of the modern insurance industry developed.
Here are 20 unusual but verifiable facts from the world of insurance.
Alien-abduction insurance really has been sold, although it sits firmly at the novelty end of the insurance spectrum.
Guinness World Records records a Florida company offering alien-abduction policies from 1987. A successful claimant would have to prove that an extraterrestrial abduction had actually taken place.
So this is a real example of an insurance-branded product – just not the sort of cover you are likely to find in a normal UK household policy.
For some professionals, their sense of taste is genuinely part of their livelihood.
A well-known example is Costa Coffee master taster Gennaro Pelliccia, whose tongue was reported by Lloyd’s as being insured for £10 million in 2009.
It sounds unusual, but specialist insurance can protect a person’s ability to earn where a particular physical skill or attribute is commercially important.
Fantasy football insurance has genuinely existed.
Specialist products were developed to compensate fantasy-team owners where selected star players missed enough games through injury. Premiums could take account of factors such as the player’s injury history.
These products have come and gone over the years, so this is better viewed as an unusual historical specialist-insurance example rather than something that is necessarily available today.
Paranormal insurance has genuinely been marketed in the UK, although it belongs firmly in the unusual end of insurance history.
In 2002, the landlord of the Royal Falcon Hotel in Lowestoft reportedly bought a Spooksafe policy after alleged paranormal activity at the property.
The cover was said to include death or permanent disability caused by ghosts, poltergeists and other paranormal phenomena. The product is no longer something readers should assume is commercially available today.
Zombie-apocalypse “insurance” has appeared in novelty products and insurance-industry marketing over the years.
However, readers should not confuse these products with conventional regulated household insurance. Some zombie policies have explicitly been sold as humorous or novelty documents with no genuine monetary insurance value.
The idea remains a fun example of how insurance language is sometimes used to imagine even the most improbable risks.
Employers have been able to insure against the unusual risk of several employees winning the lottery and leaving work at the same time.
Historical specialist cover could help meet additional recruitment costs where members of a workplace lottery syndicate won a substantial prize and resigned shortly afterwards.
It is a surprisingly practical example of insurance protecting a business against an extremely unusual staffing problem.
Wedding insurance is a genuine UK insurance product rather than simply an unusual insurance story.
Depending on the policy, it can cover certain financial losses arising from cancellation or postponement, venue or supplier problems, and loss or damage to specified wedding items.
As with any insurance, exclusions apply. For example, simply changing your mind about getting married would not normally be covered.
Celebrity body-part insurance is one of the best-known unusual corners of the insurance world.
Mariah Carey was reported in 2016 to have arranged substantial cover for her voice and legs during a world tour. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has also been widely reported as having insured his hands.
Exact values in celebrity-insurance stories can vary between sources, so the safest point is that specialist cover has been used to protect physical attributes closely linked to a celebrity’s earning power.
The basic idea behind insurance and risk transfer is thousands of years old.
In ancient Babylon, the Code of Hammurabi contained arrangements known as bottomry contracts. A merchant could borrow money to finance a trading voyage, with repayment depending on whether the voyage succeeded.
These were not insurance policies in the modern sense, but they are recognised as an early form of transferring maritime risk.
Insurance archaeology is a genuine specialist discipline.
It involves tracing and reconstructing old insurance policies that may still be relevant to liabilities arising many years or even decades later.
This can be particularly important for long-tail issues such as historic pollution, asbestos and other liabilities where an old occurrence-based policy may still provide relevant cover.
In 1971, whisky company Cutty Sark offered a £1 million prize to anyone who could capture the Loch Ness Monster.
Underwriters at Lloyd’s backed the prize, but there were conditions. Nessie had to be captured undamaged by 1 May 1972.
There was also an especially unusual condition: if somebody succeeded, the Lloyd’s underwriters would obtain the sole right to exhibit the creature.
Hole-in-one insurance is a genuine form of prize-indemnity insurance used at golf events.
An organiser can offer a valuable prize, such as a car or a substantial cash amount, and pay a premium to insure the financial risk of somebody actually scoring the qualifying hole-in-one.
If the competition conditions are met and somebody wins, the policy covers the insured prize in accordance with its terms.
In 2001, Taco Bell created a giant floating target in the South Pacific before the Mir space station returned to Earth.
The company promised a free taco to everyone in the United States if the core of Mir hit the target – and bought insurance to cover the cost of the promotion.
Mir missed. Contemporary reports put the potential free-taco cost at around $10 million, rather than the much larger figure sometimes repeated online.
One of rock music’s most repeated insurance stories concerns KISS star Gene Simmons and his famously long tongue.
It has been widely reported that Simmons insured his tongue for $1 million during the height of the band’s fame.
However, the story has never been firmly confirmed by Simmons himself, so it is better described as a famous reported insurance story rather than an independently verified policy.
The Guinness World Record for the most valuable life insurance policy is US$250 million.
The whole-of-life policy was issued and fully underwritten by HSBC Life in Hong Kong in 2024 for an individual customer.
It is designed for wealth preservation and legacy planning, with the insured amount payable to the named beneficiary after the insured person’s death.
“Death by laughter insurance” has been described in specialist insurance commentary as an unusual form of liability cover associated with comedians, performers or entertainment businesses.
The idea is that liability protection could respond if somebody suffered serious harm connected with a performance.
However, examples are largely historical or anecdotal rather than a mainstream insurance product that consumers can simply buy today, so this one belongs firmly in the unusual-insurance category.
Football clubs can have an enormous financial interest in protecting their most valuable players.
In 2009, Real Madrid was reported to have taken out a €100 million insurance policy relating to Cristiano Ronaldo after his record-breaking move from Manchester United.
At the exchange rate reported at the time, that was roughly US$142–144 million – which explains the widely repeated claim about Ronaldo’s exceptionally valuable legs.
One extraordinary Lloyd’s-market risk involved a cigar measuring around 12.5 feet long and weighing approximately 110 kg.
It was insured for almost £18,000 while being exhibited in London and was estimated to require 339 days and nights to smoke.
Reports at the time described it as the world’s largest cigar. Later record attempts mean that description should be understood in its historical context rather than as a current world record.
The Great Fire of London in 1666 played an important role in the development of modern property fire insurance in Britain.
More than 13,000 houses were destroyed. In the years that followed, specialist fire-insurance businesses emerged, including Nicholas Barbon’s Fire Office in 1680.
Early insurance companies also developed their own firefighting arrangements to protect insured properties and reduce losses.
Women make up a significant proportion of the insurance workforce.
In the United States, Bureau of Labor Statistics data reported by the Insurance Information Institute showed that women represented 59.4% of insurance workers in 2023.
Women have accounted for around 60% of the US insurance workforce each year since 2012, although representation varies significantly between different insurance occupations and seniority levels.
This statistic relates to the United States rather than the entire global insurance industry.
Insurance Can Be Unusual. Property Damage Is More Serious.
Insurance can cover some extraordinary risks, but dealing with serious damage to your own home, rental property or business is a very different matter.
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Head of Marketing & Technology, Independent Loss Adjusters
Posted by Darren - Over 15 years' experience in online marketing within the insurance claims sector and works with ILA's loss adjusters and claims professionals to turn practical claims knowledge into clear, useful guidance for policyholders.
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