The 13 Strangest Insurance Claims and Policies of 2021 - Home & Auto Insurance Guide | Gabi

Insurance provides peace of mind in many situations. Within the various coverages, you may or may not have considered, there are some truly unusual situations where you may be protected. The sky’s the limit when it comes to the ways in which your personal valuables, such as your home or car, can be damaged, and if the situation falls under your insurance policy, you can make some truly strange insurance claims!

Table of Contents

Funny Insurance Claims

1. Teeth Marks on Your Car: Funny Car Insurance Claims
2. Curly Fries in the Engine: Unusual Car Insurance Claims
3. Personal Peril: The Case of Shooting Your Own Truck
4. The Strangest Insurance Claims on iPhones
5. Flying Trampolines Make for Funny Insurance Claims
6. Plane Crashing Into Your House: Crazy Home Insurance Claims

Finding Unusual Insurance Policies

7. When Lloyds Insured the Loch Ness Monster
8. The Case of the Missing Sock… Insurance!
9. Taco Bell Buys Taco Insurance
10. Wild Wedding Insurance Claims
11. Betting on Twins: Letting Multiple Births Insurance Take on the Risk
12. Unexplained Experiences? Get Alien Abduction Insurance!
13. Insuring Your MVBPs, Most Valuable Body Parts

Funny Insurance Claims

While these circumstances are quite rare, it’s pretty impressive the kinds of stories that your average insurance agent could tell about the crazy insurance claims they’ve seen.

1. Teeth Marks on Your Car: Funny Car Insurance Claims

Farmers Insurance has shared many of the strangest car insurance claims they’ve received through ads and blog posts. For instance, a hunter left his car to try to hunt turkeys only to return to find teeth marks all over the car. The marks were made by four horses. They were drawn to a nicely-scented car wax the owner had recently applied and were trying to munch the metal. Not the most common use of auto insurance, but they paid his claim!

2. Curly Fries in the Engine: Unusual Car Insurance Claims

Another strange scenario from Farmers involved a woman dropping some curly fries on her driveway and forgetting about them, assuming they were eaten by some kind of animal. Later, when she discovered her car had “reduced engine power” with the cause unknown, the mechanic determined that there were indeed curly fries in the engine itself, dragged there most likely by a mouse. As if insurance companies didn’t have enough work on their hands calculating the risks to cars from human beings.

3. Personal Peril: The Case of Shooting Your Own Truck

Car insurance claims can range from the unbelievable – “I was hit by an invisible car!” – to the surprising – “stray cows caused this car accident by standing in the middle of the road!” When you’re claiming that it was a pedestrian who hit your car, not the other way around, or that it was your mother-in-law who was the indirect cause of an accident, you know that you’re straying into unusual car insurance claim territory. 

All that being said, most people don’t imagine that they’d have to make a claim for their own firearm discharging into their car. Hettler Insurance shared how a claimant’s shotgun went off, damaging much of the interior of the car. It was a case where having a comprehensive car insurance policy came in handy, and the insurance company was able to pay the claim. 

4. The Strangest Insurance Claims on iPhones

With cell phones accompanying people everywhere these days, iPhones have been on the receiving end of some rough demises. From the fireworks technician who accidentally blew his up, to being flushed down toilets or stolen by seagulls, it’d be hard to make up some of those strange insurance claims for iPhones!

5. Flying Trampolines Make For Funny Insurance Claims

When high winds arise, some situations occur that make it unclear whether a homeowners insurance policy or a car insurance policy is actually most applicable. For instance, there are multiple reports of flying trampolines crossing one yard into another person’s property, damaging a car or a house. With their large surface area relative to their mass, it makes sense that trampolines could “catch air” and do some serious damage, but it sure does make for some funny insurance claims coming across the insurer’s desks.

6. Plane Crashes: Crazy Home Insurance Claims

Homeowners insurance can also pay out for a variety of perils you’d truly never expect. For instance, in 2020, a man declared it a miracle that a plane that crashed into his living room hadn’t hurt him or killed any of the plane’s occupants. Thank goodness his own health insurance didn’t also have to handle such an improbable claim!

Unusual Insurance Policies

Here are just a few of the strange insurance claims that are possible. Some are true insurance policies and others were more of a gag or a publicity stunt, but they still illustrate how improbable insurance policies can actually be.

7. When Lloyds Insured the Loch Ness Monster

When Scotch whiskey producer Cutty Sark chose to offer a large prize for finding definitive proof of the Loch Ness Monster, they requested insurer Lloyds of London underwrite the contest to take some of the risk off themselves. After initial hesitation, the insurer chose to create a policy for them, but amusingly, they specified that any discovered “Nessie” had to be at least 20 feet long, and they got to keep the monster if this strange insurance claim was ever made. While no one ever found Nessie, as far as wel know, it would have made for some really stunning insurance stories. It also makes you wonder where they’d have kept the monster if he became their legal property!

8. The Case of the Missing Sock… Insurance!

Socks getting caught in washing machines and dryers has led many people to have to buy new pairs with one still available. Betabrand has taken a step to help out those lonely socks. They claim that if you lose one of the socks they sell in the first year of owning it, you can file as an insurance claimant and get your missing sock replaced. The claims process is a little unusual though: you have to take a picture of the lonely remaining sock and post it to Facebook, no complicated claim form necessary.

9. Taco Bell Buys Taco Insurance

Back in 2001, Taco Bell created a publicity stunt associated with the falling of the Mir Space Station to Earth. They put out a 40 foot by 40 foot target in the ocean with a bullseye that read “Free Taco Here!” They said they’d give every person in the United States a free taco if the target was hit by the core of the station.

This offer would have resulted in a major cost, estimated at $10 million, so Taco Bell got a customized insurance quote. That would have been one seriously funny insurance claim if Mir had made the taco-winning shot!

10. Wild Wedding Insurance Claims

Wedding insurance is a fairly common insurance policy, given that the average price of a wedding in the United States in 2019, according to The Knot’s study, was $28,000. A lot can go wrong to make people want their money back, and it’s worth securing support from an insurance company to feel more peace about possible problems. 

No one could ever have predicted some of the reasons that wedding insurance companies have paid out to claimants, though. From an airline losing all of the wedding gifts and wedding attire that were in luggage, to 10 inches of rain making it impossible to drive to the event, even very modestly priced weddings can encounter truly unusual circumstances that require wedding insurance coverage to recoup losses.

11. Betting on Twins: Letting Multiple Births Insurance Take on the Risk

Life insurance helps families move forward after a family member’s loss of life, but what if you encounter more new members joining the family than expected? It is possible to have your pregnancy insured in case of twins, triplets, quadruplets, or more. Multiple Births Insurance is purchased early in pregnancy and pays out a lump sum if you deliver more than one baby at a time, easing the financial pressure of having two or more newborns at once.

12. Unexplained Experiences? Get Alien Abduction Insurance!

The Saint Lawrence Agency has been selling Alien Abduction Insurance since 1987 with stipulations about the ways in which claimants can redeem their coverage if they experience a close encounter of the third kind. The agency’s owner makes sure that everyone knows that this insurance is a gag gift, not a robust insurance policy, since any insurance claims are paid out at a rate of $1 per year for 10 million years… not the timeline that most insurance customers are looking for!

13. Insuring Your MVBPs, Most Valuable Body Parts

Both celebrities and other talented professionals worry that the amazing skill or talent that has gained them widespread acclaim could disappear due to an unfortunate injury. From musicians insuring their hands to supermodels insuring their legs, it makes sense to pay a little for the ability to recover in the case that an injury ends an important career. The cost for those insurance policies is a risk that certain well-known public figures are clearly willing to take.

Get Coverage for the Mundane and the Unexpected

Ideally, nobody wants to be explaining damage to the front end of their car with stories about cows or invisible cars, and most of you are already keeping the wild claims at bay when you avoid accidents and proceed through life carefully and with common sense. Gabi is here for you, however, whether you eventually use your insurance for something strange or very common. 

If you want to be able to evaluate both unusual coverage options and the standard coverages for everything from homeowners insurance to car insurance, Gabi can really help. With both a robust online platform to compare quotes and knowledgeable insurance agents to talk through your particular needs, you’ll be covered even if you too end up with crazy insurance claims.