12 of the Most Bizarre Car Insurance Claims of All Time

From frozen poo to corrosive cow saliva to accident-causing potatoes, there’s no shortage of stupid stunts, crazy claims, and outrageous accidents from the world’s diciest drivers.

Here’re our picks for the cream of the crop, er, should we say, the bottom of the barrel:

1. In a bravado of nervous-nellieness, one driver got in an accident after a wasp flew up their pant leg causing the person to hit the accelerator in a panic and rear-end fellow drivers stopped at the lights ahead. Remember: The wasp never actually did any stinging. Too bad the person didn’t just keep their foot on the brake like everybody else on Earth…

2. Another driver who had a produce-related accident has given us all a reason to take the time to put your groceries in the trunk, instead of loose in the front of the car after a potato rolled out of one of their bags and got lodged under the brake pedal.

3. It’s not a myth: Cow saliva can indeed cause damage to a car’s paint job. Cows, as with deer, elk and the like, also enjoy a good salt lick. That’s all background for a bizarre-but true insurance claim for wrecked paint, plastic, and rubber…In other words, 90% of the exterior surface of any modern car. The claim resulted from a heard of cows happening upon the car, which was covered in salt from a long ocean drive, and licking it clean of said salt, plus most of the clear coat and a good deal of paint. Apparently, cow saliva also utterly destroys rubber and plastic.

4. It’s an urbal myth that airplanes dump their waste into the sky, but ocassionally, that waste will escape accidentally. Such was the case when a passenger jet leaked human waste out of one of its waste tanks. At hundreds of km/h and thousands of metres above the ground, that waste tends to freeze into lethal projectiles by the time it hits the ground. The rest of the details and all their stench:   http://www.flightattendantdiary.com/airline-stuff/frozen-poop-from-plane-struck-canadian-woman/

5. The random bad-luck-award goes to a gardener who came out to the parking lot after buying plants at a local nursery, just in time to see a camel kick a good solid dent into the side of his car. Mercifully, a local TV crew accidentally caught the whole thing on film, making for a one-in-a-million insurance-claim slam-dunk.

6. “I parked in a country lane beside a hedge, when I returned to the vehicle, two horses had chewed my car,” another dumbstruck driver maintained.

7. A group of Toronto environmentalists were unable to actually get insurance for their 1986 Buick Regal because they had gutted everything under the body and above the chassis, installing bicycle pedals so they could propel the vehicle by foot. Though no Canadian company will cover the vehicle, Toronto City Council threw out a traffic ticket issued to the eco-cruisers in 2008. In the words of the officer that pulled them over “Come on…You aren’t even close to street legal.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSwig1tgUtY

8. Apparently lots of frozen things hit cars prompting insurance claims. And airline poo isn’t the weirdest. One UK driver successfully filed a claim after a frozen squirrel fell out of a tree and crashed through the windshield, onto their passenger seat.

 9. “A pheasant flew into the windscreen causing me to lose control, mount a kerb and roll over,” added another claimant. (If it was pheasant season, at least they’d have got dinner out of it.)

10. One driver actually had to have his insurance pay out to someone he had an accident with after a frozen kebob flew out and hit another vehicle while driving around a sharp bend. No word still on whether the kabob was meat or veggie.

11. A van enthusiast vacationing in Holy Island in the UK region of Northumberland pulled over on the way home and caught a few winks. When the man woke up with his van turned into an unscheduled boat after the tide came in. Rather than trying to weigh an anchor, the man was rescued from his Volkswagen submarine.

12. One insurance form actually read “I was driving home when my car was hit by a sofa.” Though the other party was identified as at fault, they don’t have to pay a cent until 2011.

Most of these insurance claims are just plain bizarre. The reality of the matter is however, reality is stranger than fiction, and more unbelievable insurance claims will be filed. Have you heard of any that we may not be aware of?

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