June 23, 2023

It is known that many actors, athletes or other celebrities insure their lives or different body parts that serve them as the "working tools" (actors insure their faces, football players insure their feet, singers insure their voices, etc.). The most expensive insurance policyholder is an Argentinian football player, Lionel Messi, who had insured his left leg for 900 mln. EUR. It is noteworthy that his main rival, Cristiano Ronaldo, insured his legs for a much smaller sum of 100 mln. EUR each. It is believed that the first person in history who decided to insure a certain part of his body was the famous American silent film actor of the 1930s – Ben Turpin. He was famous for having crossed eyes (caused by an accident), which was his "trump card" in comedian movies. And he was afraid that one day his eyes would become uncrossed, potentially depriving him of movie roles and causing him a loss of his source of income. So, he decided to insure his crossed eyes against the "risk" of becoming uncrossed at Lloyd’s with an insurance sum of 25 000 USD. This amount is the equivalent of 500 000 in today's money.