Just to be on the safe side

Here in the United States there is escalating concern among many of us that health insurance rates are going to skyrocket, since Donald Trump's campaign promise of making health care affordable is still at the tentative thoughts about a potential discussion of a concept of a plan stage.  The Republicans in Congress are understandably unconcerned, because they have their health insurance paid for.

It's the "I just ate dinner, so there's no such thing as a hunger problem" approach to things.

While health insurance and car insurance have always made good sense to me -- paying some amount monthly to guarantee not being bankrupted if you have a huge emergency -- a lot of kinds of insurance are just weird.  Take, for example, life insurance.  I guess in some ways it's reasonable; a cash payout to survivors to replace the income of a principal breadwinner, for example.  But in a lot of ways it seems like the insurance company betting every month that you'll live longer than you think you will, and if you die young, you win.

This is far from the weirdest thing people have insured, however.  Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, and Bob Dylan all have their vocal cords insured with Lloyd's of London, although in Dylan's case you have to wonder how much worse his voice would have to get before he'd be entitled to file a claim.  Michael Flatley, of Riverdance fame, has his legs insured for $47 million dollars.  I guess these, too, make some degree of sense, though, since all these people depend on the insured parts for their livelihood.

An insurance policy from 1851  [Image licensed under the Creative Commons Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, Life insurance certificate issued by the Yorkshire Fire & Life Insurance Company to Samuel Holt, Liverpool, England, 1851.  British Museum, London, CC BY-SA 4.0]

But it only gets stranger from here.  Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth insured his penis, which is named -- I swear I'm not making this up -- "Little Elvis," for a million dollars.  What I wonder about this is how he became concerned he was at risk of losing it.  I mean, I'm as fond of mine as the next guy, but I've never really had any serious worries that it was going to get stolen or something.  Be that as it may, apparently Roth is All Shook Up about the possibility, to the point that he'll pay a premium monthly just to be sure he's adequately compensated if Little Elvis decides to Return to Sender.

Then there are the three sisters in Inverness, Scotland, who each paid £100 annually for a policy with a £1,000,000 payout if any of them experienced a virgin conception and gave birth to the Second Coming of Christ.  Apparently their motivation was concern over the emotional stress of raising baby Jesus, which I have to admit would be a challenge to even the most well-intentioned parent.  The company that issued the policy, British Insurance, eventually cancelled it, however.  "The Catholic Church is up in arms about what we've been doing," said Simon Burgess, the company's managing director.  "We have withdrawn the cover because it was causing a furore."

So I guess if Christ's rebirth occurs in Inverness, the New Holy Family are going to be on their own.

Then there are the estimated 37,000 people who have purchased insurance against the possibility of their being abducted by aliens.  Presumably this is for people who are abducted and then returned, because if you were whisked off to Zeta Reticuli or wherever permanently, it'd be kind of hard to file a claim.  It sounds weird, but the insurance companies that have offered such a policy seem to recognize that it's a great way to get people's money with a near-zero chance of ever having to pay anything to the insured.  Apparently the London-based company Goodfellow Rebecca Ingrams Pearson offered a policy -- now discontinued -- that provided double indemnity if the abduction resulted in pregnancy.  This explicitly even applied to men, because you never know what those crafty aliens might be capable of.

What I wonder most about alien abduction insurance, though, is how the hell they calculated the premium.  Insurance companies hire people called actuaries, whose job it is to assess the overall risk of the company having to pay out, and then fix the premiums at a level that would allow the company to cover their expenses (including payouts) and still turn a profit.  So: the higher the risk of payout, the higher the premium.  That's why smokers pay more for life insurance, for example.  But how do you assess the risk for something that has never happened, and which (to all appearances) won't ever happen?  My guess is the actuaries stayed up late one night discussing it, and after a few martinis they said, "Fuck it, let's just charge 'em a hundred bucks yearly per million and call it good."

Anyhow, here's yet more evidence that I have zero understanding of my fellow humans.  I mean, okay, I get why the insurance companies do this.  Despite reassuring us that they're Like a Good Neighbor and that You're In Good Hands, the reason they exist is to rake in truly enormous amounts of cash for their CEOs and stockholders.  But what motivates the people who purchase these policies?  Are they really that worried they'll be abducted and/or impregnated?  Like with David Lee Roth's wee friend, you have to wonder if any of these people understand the concept of actual risk.

Or maybe they all have way more money than I do, and figure, "What the hell, I can afford it, may as well sleep a little more soundly at night."

Me, I'm willing to take my chances.  I'm already paying an astronomical amount for health insurance, and that's only going to get worse given the current regime's Corporate Profits FTW attitude.  As far as my various body parts and my likelihood of being abducted by aliens, I think I'll just deal with it if it happens.  And I doubt seriously if my wife and I would be chosen as parents to Jesus 2.0.  I think as a pair of sixty-something atheists, we're probably unlikely to be anywhere near the top of the list.

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Alien abduction insurance policies

Looking a holiday gift for the woo-woo in your life that has everything?

Considering purchasing something truly useful for your friend: Alien Abduction Insurance.

I'm not making this up.  British Insurance of Colchester, Essex, England has policies available for £100 per year for £1,000,000 of coverage.  (This is the same company that insured three sisters in Inverness, Scotland in 2006 against a virgin birth; evidently the three were afraid that one of them might be responsible for the Second Coming of Christ.)  Several American companies offer policies for similar rate/payout ratios.  It's reputed that noted wingnut Shirley MacLaine has purchased such a policy, although if she did get abducted a lot of the skeptics I know would be willing to pay the aliens to keep her.

If that's a little expensive for your tastes, a Florida insurance company, the St. Lawrence Agency, will send you a handsome certificate certifying your coverage of $10 million for a one-time payment of only $7.95.  Not only are you insured against alien abduction by this policy, your outpatient medical expenses (for recovering from the effects of the abduction) are covered, and you are guaranteed double indemnity if your visit to the spacecraft resulted in any half-human, half-alien children, or if (heaven forbid) the aliens come back insisting on conjugal visits.

While the St. Lawrence Agency's offer is clearly meant as a joke, the rest of these guys are apparently serious.  In fact, the London brokerage Goodfellow Rebecca Ingrams Pearson once offered a policy (now discontinued) that was remarkably like the St. Lawrence Agency one, with the addition that men could also insure themselves against impregnation -- because, after all, you never know what those crafty aliens might be capable of.  And the GRIP policy was entirely legally binding and authentic.  Which brings up a few questions:

First:  Are the people who purchase these policies insane?  Or what?

Second, this seems like an awfully good deal for the insurance company, doesn't it?  You pay them $100/year for your million-dollar coverage, and in return, they do... nothing.  If you get abducted by aliens, you would have to prove to the insurance company that it had happened in order to get a payout -- and consider the number of people who have successfully proved alien abductions thus far in the history of humanity (and that was when a million bucks wasn't on the line).

Third, I wonder how they calculated the premium?  Insurance companies hire people called actuaries, whose job it is to assess the overall risk of the company having to pay out, and then fix the premiums at a level that would allow the company to cover their expenses (including payouts) and still turn a profit.  So: the higher the risk of payout, the higher the premium.  That's why smokers pay more for life insurance, for example.  But how do you assess the risk for something that has never happened, and which (to all appearances) won't ever happen?  My guess is the actuaries just stayed up late one night discussing it, and after a few martinis they said, "Screw it, let's just charge 'em a hundred dollars yearly per million and call it good."

And last: what happens if the aliens decide not to return you to Earth?  Clearly you would be owed the payout, but you wouldn't be around to collect it.  This seems like an unfortunate loophole in the policy.  However, since it's unlikely that the aliens would honor Earthling currency, I don't suppose that having large quantities of dollars (or pounds, or euros, or whatever) would do you much good in any case, up there on the spacecraft.

So, there you are.  I'd go with the St. Lawrence Agency, myself.  It's cheaper, comes with a lovely certificate (suitable for framing), and seems to look at the whole thing in the proper light.  If anyone is looking for a gift for me for the holidays, let me just specify that I'd like my beneficiary to be my dog, Doolin.  It may seem harsh of me to bypass my wife, but I've long suspected that Doolin is an alien herself.  She is hands-down the weirdest dog I've ever known, and gives every evidence of being an extraterrestrial life form who is attempting to impersonate a dog and still can't quite manage to make it look authentic.  So it's only fitting that she should get the money.  I'm sure she'll share with Carol and our other dog, Grendel, although I suspect the cats will have to fend for themselves.