# Serious....ish question **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 31, 2007, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665 "2007-10-31T03:10:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Litoris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@Litoris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Litoris)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/1 "2007-10-31T03:10:58Z")
I didn’t want to hijack the thread for the Zombie game, but it made me think about a conversation my husband and I had the other night. Say Night of the Living Dead/Shaun of the Dead/28 Days Later type scenario came into play. We wake up tomorrow, there’s a zombie disease infecting, killing and then reanimating the corpses of those we know, love, hate, whatever. Say my husband gets bitten – he succumbs and is the walking dead. He’s worth about $500K dead – do I get a payout? Seriously. You have to actually die to become a zombie, whether your head gets blown off a la NotLD, or you just become a cashier drone at the local minimart a la SotD – would insurance have to pay out? I figure they’d find a loophole to get out of paying, but I am pretty sure that with no pulse, missing internal organs, and all the joys of being the walking dead, it shouldn’t be that hard to get a death certificate on him. And after all, that’s really all that they require – proof of death, right? ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Woodhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/2 "2007-10-31T03:50:33Z")
well, sure, but who are you going to get to certify the certificate? If I were the county coroner, I would have left town already if there was a zombie infestation. Wouldn’t you have to get close enough to get infected yourself to verify the lack of pulse? ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/3 "2007-10-31T13:35:48Z")
Every zombie movie I have ever seen I remember seeing images of the zombies digging out of their graves. I assume that they had to have been dead for at least a few days if they have been buried at that point, so you probably could collect on the life insurance policy. I am an insurance agent but I don’t deal with life insurance and I have never had to deal with a zombie claim so I can’t say for sure, but with a good insurance company you would already have the check in hand by the time he reanimated and began searching for brains. ---
**Author:** ![Kuboydal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@Kuboydal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kuboydal)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/4 "2007-10-31T13:39:23Z")
Perhaps we should look into extra zombie coverage just in case. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/5 "2007-10-31T13:46:25Z")
This raises a larger issue. Is there really such thing as an undead? DHZ is up and about, moving around, and has a healthy appetite. That closely resembles “alive.” And let’s suppose you did the only right thing and you blew his brains out. Could you be charged with murder? ---
**Author:** ![Litoris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@Litoris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Litoris)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/6 "2007-10-31T14:02:04Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] This raises a larger issue. Is there really such thing as an undead? DHZ is up and about, moving around, and has a healthy appetite. That closely resembles “alive.” And let’s suppose you did the only right thing and you blew his brains out. Could you be charged with murder? [/QUOTE] Now, see – this is why I loved Shaun of the Dead – it was way more realistic than other zombie movies. I mean, ya know, people start acting weird and nobody really notices until it’s pandemic. And there’s the whole “I don’t really want to shoot my mum” part… See, I am thinking along the lines of that movie – where it’s a disease. You become infected, die (either from wounds that caused you to become infected or whatever) and then are re-animated. **For those who have not seen SotD, it’s definitely worth watching** Obviously, if you are one of the zombies from a classical movie like NotLD, where you were already buried, yeh, your life insurance has already paid. In the case of being a living being who becomes infected…well, hopefully you’re one of the first ones, so the doctors pronounce you dead shove you in a body bag and then you come out of there – does the insurance pay? Do I need to give proof of zombification? hmmmmmm…things to consider… ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/7 "2007-10-31T15:07:17Z")
There was a great thread here once that I totally didn’t know enough about the issues involved, but it was “Can Blackacre vest in a zombie?” or something. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/8 "2007-10-31T18:39:45Z")
Don’t most medical centers these days define ‘death’ as ‘brain death’? I think that most zombies wouldn’t give a significant EEG reading, and so would count as dead. Especially the old-school zombies, which are mostly rotted anyhow. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/9 "2007-10-31T18:48:23Z")
I don’t know. But I spent some time yesterday wondering how Vampires could wash their hands in those washrooms that have motion detector faucets. I mean, they have no reflection, so how’s the IR detector supposed to “see” them? Mind boggling stuff, all this. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/10 "2007-10-31T19:14:11Z")
Why would a vampire need to wash his hands? ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/11 "2007-10-31T20:55:18Z")
What, just because someone is undead they can’t care about being free of germs? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/12 "2007-10-31T21:07:46Z")
[QUOTE=garygnu] Why would a vampire need to wash his hands? [/QUOTE] Maybe he works in a steakhouse. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/13 "2007-10-31T21:18:58Z")
[QUOTE=Leaffan] I don’t know. But I spent some time yesterday wondering how Vampires could wash their hands in those washrooms that have motion detector faucets. I mean, they have no reflection, so how’s the IR detector supposed to “see” them? [/QUOTE] Perhaps the same way people looking directly at them can see them. Not having a reflection doesn’t necessarily mean no devices react to their image. What it does mean is unclear, as I don’t believe the mechanism of action is specified, but if they’re not actually full-on invisible in every way, then there’s some room to work with here. ---
**Author:** ![Litoris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@Litoris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Litoris)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-ish-question/424665/14 "2007-10-31T21:22:59Z")
Cthulu H – why is it that my threads always devolve into completely non-related topics? Not that I mind, mind you, but still…