How to Insure Your Personal Assets like a Celeb
Insurance was designed to help people protect the things they love from catastrophes, mishaps, and other sorts of freakish accidents. It’s an absolute must-have when it comes to looking after your home, car, business, or even life. But what happens when celebs get a little carried away with their personal property?
Well, this:
Gene Simmons of KISS Insured His Tongue
Big KISS fan or not, it’s impossible to imagine Gene Simmons without his signature demon-like tongue. And that’s exactly what he thought too. So to protect that hard-rocking image, he insured the thing for $1 million. And following suit, decades later, Miley Cyrus had hers insured too. Soooo, that’s weird.
David Beckham Insured His Whole Bod
Most of the people so far have wanted to protect that one thing that they just love so much. Not David Beckham. The international soccer/football star insured every single bit of himself, head to toe, for a cool $195 million. Psh, obsessed much?
Keith Richards Insured JUST His Middle Finger
Rock stars aren’t so different from the rest of us, they use their hands for their jobs too. And without them, they’d just be normal people in weird, flashy clothes. That’s why legendary guitarist and real-life Energizer Bunny Keith Richards insured JUST his guitar-pick-holding middle finger for a healthy $1.6 million.
But he’s not alone. Fellow guitar god, Jeff Beck, also insured his digits for $1 million EACH. Not sure if that includes the thumbs, though.
David Lee Roth Insured His "David Little Roth"
When Van Halen was getting ready for a tour, they were discussing insurance needs for each of the members. Eddie Van Halen would need his fingers insured, Alex Van Halen would need his elbows covered, and jokingly at first, David Lee Roth said he would need his um…little bandmember insured. The rest, as they say, is history.
That's Great, But What about YOUR Assets?
Your life probably isn't all fame and glamour, but that doesn't mean you don't have your own valuable stuff to protect. Cars, your home, your boat, whatever it is, it all deserves A-Lister coverage. Here's a few things you may want to consider:
Protect Your Home with Homeowners Insurance
To put it simply, homeowners insurance is designed to repair, replace, or recover the value of what you currently have (under coverage) if it’s damaged due to any number of causes. Your home insurance covers things like:
- Property damage: This is by far the biggest claim-maker, which includes damage to your house and any structures on your property due to water, fire, and severe storms among others.
- Natural disasters: Homewreckers like floods and earthquakes are usually not covered by basic plans, meaning you’ll need added coverage or a separate policy to keep your goodies protected. See what disasters are covered >
- Standard home liability: This will cover you financially if someone is injured or their personal belongings are damaged while on your property. More liability info >
- Extra money for living: If your house is too messed up to live in while it’s being repaired or rebuilt, most policies will pay for a hotel and other living expenses, like groceries.
- Personal property coverage (aka your stuff): This will depend on the policy. Items like furniture may only be covered up to a depreciated value, but stuff like your bling might not have any coverage and will need additional insurance. Details on covering your stuff >
Protect Your Ride with Car Insurance
Car insurance covers your car, other people’s cars, the people inside the cars, and the people around the cars (like pedestrians and bikers). It really depends on the type(s) of coverage you have.
There are three main auto insurance coverage types — liability, collision, and comprehensive. There are also a number of specialized extras available. Here’s an overview of what you can expect from each:
- Liability: This is the legal minimum of coverage — the other types are recommended, but not required. It covers your medical expenses (up to a point). If you’re at fault for an accident, it also covers the other driver’s medical expenses and car repairs. It does not cover repairs to your car.
- Collision: This covers repairs to your car in case of a collision with another vehicle or inanimate object, like a mailbox.
- Comprehensive: This covers everything else that can happen to your car: fire, wild animal collisions, riots, and even missiles. It’s more accurately called “other than collision.”
Other options for more extensive coverage:
- Uninsured/Underinsured motorist: This covers medical or repair expenses that are more expensive than what the other person’s insurance covers. (For example, if they’re driving uninsured — illegally — or if they carry only the cheapest coverage.)
- Medical payments: This covers medical bills that go over what your liability insurance covers. If you don’t have health insurance, this is especially important.
- Rental car: This covers rental car costs while your car is being repaired after an accident.
- Road service/Roadside assistance: This covers emergency tows, battery jump starts, and other roadside mishaps.
Protect Your Vacation Time with Cabin Insurance
Cabin insurance, typically known as seasonal home insurance, protects your vacation home and your possessions in it against a wide variety of dangers, like:
- Fire damage
- Storm damage (i.e., hail, wind, snow, rain, lightning, etc.)
- Theft/burglary/vandalism
- Arson
- Liability coverage for injuries to other parties on your property
One particular distinction to make about cabin insurance is that it is separate from your primary homeowners insurance policy.
Protect Your Sea Life with Boat Insurance
Coverage will depend on a number factors. You can imagine that a yacht will require different insurance than a petite Jon boat with a 12-volt trolling motor. However, for most watercraft, the “tremendous trio” of boat insurance coverage on a policy includes:
- Bodily injury liability: This covers medical-related expenses for another person.
- Property damage liability: This covers expenses for damaging another’s property.
- Physical damage: This covers expenses due to damage of your own property, trailer, etc.
Additional policy options can include:
- Property coverage: Coverage for tools, life preservers, anchors, and even fishing gear.
- Towing coverage: Coverage for when your boat becomes disabled.
- Medical expenses: Coverage for hospital and funeral expenses for you or your passengers.
- Uninsured/underinsured boaters’ coverage: If you have an accident with another boater whose insurance is not sufficient, this covers the damage.
Protect Your Family with Life Insurance
There are three types of life insurance with a number of differences between them. But boiled down — term, whole, and universal plans all do the same thing — they pay out a set amount of money to someone when you die.
Term life insurance: This option is geared toward younger people because it’s more of a temporary plan that only covers you for a period of time, usually 10, 20, or 30 years. If you were to stop living within that time frame, a set amount of money would go to the people/person you choose.
Whole life insurance: It has the same concept as term, but this policy is forever (or until you die). It also has a bell and a whistle.
- The bell: It has a savings account that accrues money. Eventually (if you continue to not die), it will hit the policy’s coverage amount. At that point, the insurer will say something like:
“Hey, so you have the same amount of cash in your savings as what we would pay out, so, you don’t need us anymore. Here’s your money. Good luck not dying and stuff.”
- The whistle: Whatever cash you accrue, you can borrow. But to no surprise, you’ll eventually have to pay it back to continue coverage.
Don’t freak out if you’re not totally clear on the differences between term and whole, we have more info here >>
Universal life insurance: It’s a lot like the whole plan but with a shinier bell and two whistles.
- Shinier bell: Instead of a standard savings account, this also accrues interest.
- Whistle 1: You can kick in more money than your payment to take advantage of the interest.
- Whistle 2: Not only can you borrow from this account, but you can also skip payments without a penalty (as long as the account has money in it).
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