Legend has it that American actor Ben Turpin was the first to insure his body in the 1920s. The silent film actor would have spent a lot of money to guarantee his trademark squint, according to him.
Twenty years later, it’s up to pin-up Betty Grable to take the plunge. He insures his precious legs for $1 milliondragging in its wake glittering celebrities eager to put a price on their “talents”. $1.6 million by the hands of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, 2 millions for the legs of the model Heidi Klum, 10 million for the smile of the actress America Ferrara…
Stars insure their main physical assets to increase their notoriety, of course, but also to protect themselves from any breach of contract with the brands or production companies they collaborate with. “If something happened to my chest, I would be out for several months and would definitely lose a million dollars, so I preferred to insure that”said the TV star Holly Madison in 2011, according to Reuters.
For over 300 years, an insurer has specialized in these unusual guarantees: the Lloyd’s of London. This British insurance giant is not a classic company but a market in which several insurers operate. It is this key player in the industry that covers the majority of insured celebrities. “We often take out insurance that covers very specific things, things that are intentionally excluded from life insurance or accident insurance,” detailed to the Financial Times Jonathan Thomas, Lloyd’s insurer in 2010.
“If I have a problem with my finger, I can’t play anymore”
But celebrities aren’t the only ones whose meat is essential to the practice of the profession. So are there insurance policies of the same type for mere mortals and do they work in a similar way? If all professions obviously need a body shell to be exercised, some more than others require an essential part of the body.
Among them, surgeons, pilots or even musicians. In these early vocational careers, which a disability would definitively compromise, personal insurance is in fashion. With some nuances, however, compared to the assurances of the stars.
Jérôme Verhaeghe is the second clarinet soloist with the orchestra of the Paris Opera for twenty-five years. A prestigious position, which depends entirely… on his physical abilities. His hands, his fingers, his mouth or his ears: he cannot play without these parts of his body. Like all the other orchestra musicians, he enjoys a very special guarantee, taking into account the specificities of each instrument.
“My insurance covers me when I can no longer play my instrument, it’s a complementary, tailor-made incapacity, He explains. There are instruments where you can play with four fingers, like the trumpet, but for the clarinet we use ten fingers, so if I have a problem with one finger, it’s 100% invalid, I can’t play anymore. These insurances cover us completely, unlike traditional insurances. It brings justice and somewhat balances the specifics of our works. In spite of everything, I’m careful when I open the oysters or when I’m fumbling, I wear warrior gloves so as not to get hurt [rires]»
“It is possible to have a recognition of permanent disability of 10% by the Social Security by passing in front of our expert doctor, it will be 100%”.
In the event of a problem, your salary will be covered up to 100% of the gross amount until your retirement age. Substantially advantageous conditions. If we can therefore expect that the contributions of this pension fund will be high, in proportion to the risks it covers and the benefits it provides, Jérôme Verhaeghe ultimately pays only around fifty euros a month, while his employer takes care of the the other half thanks to a collective agreement applied to all musicians of the orchestra.
“When I arrived at the Paris Opéra in 1997, it didn’t give this kind of guarantee, recalls Jérôme Verhaeghe. We depended on the basic social security scale that establishes the percentages of disability and these are ridiculous percentages compared to the profession we carry out. For a cut phalanx, for example, it’s very little, we have no right to anything. However, in my profession, we can no longer play certain instruments with this handicap and therefore we can no longer practice our profession. There, of course, is additional coverage, but that covers this kind of risk.
Insure the whole body or just a part of it?
Although this type of insurance is very exceptional, entirely adapted to these delicate professions, it does not cover a particular part of the body, as with famous people. The reason? Avoid limiting its scope.
“In insurance there are ‘everything but’ contracts and contracts that insure you for very specific things. The most protective are the first, clarifies Frédéric Déal, head of the Key Accounts team at Audiens. Our risk assessment for musicians is to say that there are many things that can make it impossible for them to continue in their business. This therefore assumes that the definition is broad enough. We have no reason to target a part of the body because we would end up with people who no longer know how to play and for whom we have not been able to define upstream the organ that can lead to these situations.
In the event of an accident, the social protection institution specialized in the world of culture then appoints an expert doctor who carries out an examination of all members and establishes whether the musician concerned is still physically fit to play his instrument. “The particularity of these plans is that they include derogatory guarantees which take into account the fact that the exercise of the profession is rather singular and that in some cases there may be a gap between the reality of the situation and the assessment of the social security, specifies Frédéric Déal. It is possible to have a recognition of permanent disability of 10% by the Social Security by passing in front of our expert doctor, it will be 100%.
On the airline pilots’ side, the operation is essentially the same. But with them, it’s the loss of your medical license that’s at the heart of the warranty. Every year they undergo a medical examination, which is essential for the exercise of their profession. If they fail due to any physical problem, it is impossible to continue their business. The vast majority of them subscribe to a guarantee against the loss of this license. Again, it is not targeting a body part but does include any physical discomfort that could result in loss of license.
“We are completely subject to this medical examination, insists the former president of the Union of Air France pilots, Grégoire Aplincourt. In case of a problem, you can find yourself with fifteen or twenty years of career to go but unable to fly. What usually happens is excessive vision or hearing loss. That day, it falls a little on you and you have no choice. It is therefore essential that our insurance takes care of us, because conventional insurance would never do that if there are no accidents but simply aging.
“For a rider at the beginning of his career, it will be around 100 euros a month, while around the age of 45 or 50, we will approach 250 euros a month, ending up around 400 euros.”
Arthur Aflalo, 29, an Air France pilot, agrees: “Many young drivers go into debt of up to 100,000 euros to pay for their studies.. That’s years of credit to pay off. These insurances protect us: it is a psychological comfort and a financial necessity should the worst happen.
Like musicians, airline pilots often combine this insurance with personal body insurance, which covers them in everyday life. Add to this the amounts of their salaries, often comfortable, on which their pay will be indexed in case of a problem… as well as the absence of a collective agreement. Their contributions have, in fact, a completely different flavor from those of our clarinetist, as Grégoire Aplincourt explains: “For a rider at the beginning of his career it will be around 100 euros a month, while around the age of 45 or 50 we will approach 250 euros a month, ending up around 400 euros at the end of his career. And this is for an average guarantee level. It’s more expensive if you want to be extremely well covered. But if we pay more it is because this providence covers what the others do not.
For the maxillofacial surgeon Mourad Benassarou, doctor at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital, it is a justified cost: “There is a risk that we will no longer be able to practice our profession in the event of an accident, which would require time-consuming and costly retraining, potentially lowering living standards.”
In the language of insurance, this is what is called heavy risk, and therefore expensive. The business could therefore be expected to be (very) profitable for pension funds. If it really is le cas pour Lloyd’s of Londonthe insurer of the stars, Audiens claims otherwise: “Obviously we have the concern of being in balance, for a matter of continuity of our business, says Frédéric Déal, but our business is not lucrative, we have no vocation to make money, we have no shareholders. Our only concern is to be able to continue to cover the risks for these professionals over time”.
