Life Insurance for Santa Claus

I acknowledge that I am not the first to broach the subject of life insurance for Santa Claus, but I do think the subject needs updating. Christmas is around the corner and if I know Old Nicholas as well as I think I do, he must be a fairly responsible and sensible fellow who should have assessed his premiums and renewed his insurance months ago – after all, isn’t he some kind of saint?

Sadly you can’t just get an instant quote online for Santa Claus. I worked out his age to be 1738 years old and they only offer a life insurance policy if you’re born in the twentieth century. Furthermore, I would be eager to find out if Santa’s still smoking that pipe of his…that’s only going to push up the premiums for life insurance. And coupled with the fact that he is at least Class 1 obese (Body Mass Index 30 to 34.9)…things ain’t looking good.

I also wrote recently of Northern Irish police formally warning drivers of the difficulties they will face if trying to acquire car insurance after being charged for drink driving offences. It doesn’t take much to work out that if Santa keeps up his brandy consumption, alongside the mince pie scoffing, he’s playing a risky game at least when he drops in on Northern Ireland. Though in 1738 years of alcohol-fuelled gift giving it’s fair to say he’s been darn good at not getting caught. I imagine he’s built up quite a tolerance!

Keeping on the car insurance theme, what will he have to pay for that ride of his? An irreplaceable antique magic sleigh which, dare I say, must have seen some phat pimping over the years (gold trim, numerous “turn-on red” re-sprays), and not to mention the fact that it’s powered by nine reindeer (lets not get started on pet insurance). He’s going to need some specialist cover for that beast, and it will cost…even if he does only make one journey a year.

Turning again to life insurance, pilots are generally considered “high risk” by insurance companies, not due to the chances of an accident, but instead because of stress. We all know that Santa is not renowned for his high blood pressure and short temper, but having said that, let’s take into consideration the extreme circumstances he has to operate under. The average speed at which he travels at is 650 miles a second, this is to make sure he can deliver presents to each of the 380 million kids (supposing they’ve been good enough) who believe in him.

Not only is this a tight schedule (he has 31 hours to make these deliveries), but we should also take into account the physical forces at play for a Class 1 obese brandy-soaked man travelling 3,000 times the speed of sound. That’s about 5,000,000 pounds of force on Saint Nick’s body. That’s over 17,000 times stronger than gravity. From an insurers point of view, the risk of Santa being vaporized (basically, all the liquid in his body turning to gas in less than a second), is about as high as someone who is sitting atop a thermonuclear bomb during detonation.

Merry Christmas!