I’m a sucker for insurance. If you are naturally suspicious and inclined to pessimism then insurance is a drug you have no control over. You are either fantasising about how you can get more of it, or else desperately trying to make do with less of it. No matter how you adjust the dosage you can never get it right.
If you are also superstitious there is an added dimension. I’m not only hooked on the insurances I have, I’m hooked on not having the insurances I don’t. For example, I did not take out a pet plan when the vet suggested it, so now the cat and rabbit must remain uncovered forever. This is because I have since spent thousands on vet bills so am committed to making my non-insurance strategy work by not adding to the expense by also taking out insurance. This is madness and will never work. But I cannot turn back. The same rule applies to insurances I have and want to cancel. There is no way to do this. Cancelling insurance is simply opening the door to disasters.
It all adds up to non-stop torment. And yet insurance is supposed to be peace of mind, according to my boyfriend, who, as coincidence would have it, is in something called re-insurance. I think this means that when you take out an insurance policy the company who has insured you goes off and buys insurance from someone else to insure them for insuring you. As far as I can make out the chain goes on forever, or at least until the risk is spread so wide that when you do actually crash your car a staggering array of companies with assets bigger than most South American countries will be involved in coughing up the money for the repairs. Not so much peace of mind, as peace of peace of mind.
Now, the other funky thing about insurance is this: there are all sorts of insurances you never knew you had.
A few weeks ago I started going through policy documents and reading the small print. I discovered that my horse Tara is insured for polo. The main thing I do with Tara is feed her, stable her and occasionally have her massaged by the horse physiotherapist. She is 17, has bad feet and a colossal attitude problem. She is a huge Irish hunter and can barely turn in the space needed by an articulated lorry, never mind on a sixpence. So I rang Equine and Livestock and discovered that if I took off the polo stipulation I could reduce my premium from £700 a year to £300. Of course, in cancelling it I had to go through withdrawals. I started to obsess about Tara becoming involved in a freak polo match. The insurance cold turkey sweats were hellish but I think I’m through the worst of it now.
But that wasn’t the weirdest thing I did not know I was insured for. Completely without realising it, I have somehow managed to insure the contents of my handbag with a company called CPP since 2004. In that time I have actually had my bag stolen. But I had no idea I was insured for it so it did me no good. As lightning had already struck, I decided to ring them and try to cancel.
‘But what if you were abroad and you lost your bag?’ the customer service advisor said. ‘We would cancel your cards, give you emergency cash, replace your mobile phone and change your locks and keys.’
‘That’s all very well,’ I said. ‘But such an incident has already happened. I cancelled my cards, changed my locks and replaced my phone myself.’
‘But what about your passport? What would you do if you were in a foreign country and…’
‘I would go to the British embassy.’
‘But how would you know where it was? You haven’t got a mobile phone remember?’
‘I would ask at the hotel.’
‘But what if you couldn’t get back to the hotel? You’ve got no money. Your bag’s been stolen…’
‘So I’ve got no phone?’
‘No.’
‘So how am I going to phone you?’
‘Well, we’ve sent you a special card with our number on. You put that in a safe place.’
‘Like my handbag?’
‘No, not your handbag. You keep it separate. In the safe in the hotel, for example.’
‘But I can’t get back to the hotel, remember? I’m stranded.’
For once I felt pleased to cancel a policy. Of course it will be tough when I go on holiday in a few months’ time. I will have to dodge bag-snatchers every step of the way. And for £35 a year it won’t even be particularly worth it. As I say, you can never get it right.
Melissa Kite is deputy political editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
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