Those of you who follow Formula One may have heard that Fernando Alonso’s thumbs were insured for 10 million euros. And Hollywood starlets’ legs get insured all the time.
What’s the point of this? True, Alonso without the thumbs couldn’t race and Jane Hottie wouldn’t be hottie without the legs but any other crippling accident on any other body part would be just as bad. A broken ankle on Alonso or a missing hand on that starlet would kill their careers just as well.
What’s the logic behind insuring individual body parts?
At least in some cases, loss of a certain body part does mean that entire career and/or company is out of business. A lot of wine experts and chefs have parts or all of their olfactory systems insured because, for example, the Robert Parker wine critic organization would certainly go out of business and/or go seriously downhill if RP himself could no longer do wine tastings.
So… that’s logic enough, isn’t it? Robert Parker could break a leg or lose a hand and his company wouldn’t be affected at all. Lose his sense of smell? Major big deal.
I suspect at least [art of the logic is just simple notoriety. The “no such thing as bad publicity” theory of public relations. J’lo insures her generously blessed posterior and it just calls even more attention to her only significant asset. In other words, it’s just a cheap fairly innocuous way to get noticed.
Ok, that’s a great example of a career that would be wrecked by the loss of that body part and left unharmed by the loss of any other. You can still taste wine one-armed from a wheel chair. An exception to prove the rule, though.
Artists and sportsmen would be ruined by damage to ANY body part. A racer’s thumbs are not so instrumental to his career over any other part. Any nasty visible scar would ruin a starlet.
I could buy into Alpha’s theory of publicity for the cases of celebrities. I still don’t see that working for an athlete. Maybe if they insured their wrists and then got a publicity deal with Rolex.
This is pretty much a publicity deal http://formulaone.blogs.nytimes.com/ . He was announcing the continued sponsorship of his team by Santander, a large Spanish bank. They decided to promote their insurance business, so they “insured” his thumbs. Drivers can easily break thumbs or wrists if they don’t take their hands off the steering wheel during an accident.
I know of at least one case where such a policy has paid off. Rosie O’Donnell used to have something of a trademark of kissing all the guests on her show, and so had her lips insured. When she got a cold sore on her lip and couldn’t kiss guests for the duration, they paid up (and Charlton Heston personally appeared on her show to present the check).
Many racers compete with broken bones. It largely depends on what you are driving. A NASCAR driver can often can drive with breaks that would put a road course driver out for an event or two because he moves about less in the course of his work. An ankle would probably not prevent you from racing although it could prevent you from winning. If you break a rib, you are expected back in the car the next week.
Alex Zanardi lost both his legs in an Indycar accident and was racing in a high-level series two years later. He had won four times before he retired.
On the other hand, thumbs would be a problem. Shoulder to fingertip is where all the hard work is done. Although there are artificial thumb joints, they may be less developed that artificial limbs. I think it may be easier to master to the small motor movements of an artificial hand more easily than just controlling the thumb. Just a guess though.
True. Although in modern F1 a broken anything normally means sitting out races. Webber raced at a considerable disadvantage (or so they tell) with a well set months old broken leg just because he still had a screw in it.
Thumbs are special, though. The whole car is controlled from the steering wheel and most button are pressed with the thumbs. On that sense a loss of a thumb is probable more relevant than the loss of a toe, I bet.
A git of a hijack, but I know someone who collected (after threatening litigation) on a loss of limb airline insurance policy when the airline somehow contrived to lose his artificial leg. Of course, he was very inconvenienced until he could replace it.
