By Paul Miller, London
Did you know that Lloyd’s of London helped Mickey Mouse celebrate his 8th birthday?
In 1936, a competition was announced to celebrate Mickey’s special day. Any child born on September 28, 1928, the date of Mickey’s birth, would receive a cake. Disney feared that the competition may be too successful and so, took out coverage at Lloyd’s for a premium of £5. The policy agreed to pay out 10 shillings for each child in excess of the first 2,000 children to collect. It turned out to be a safe bet.
Lloyd’s has underwritten cast insurance for Disney since the 1930s, as no other insurer would accept the risk at that time. Jimmy Johnson, General Manager of Disney throughout the 1950’s purchased all insurances for the Corporation.
He once said: “Lloyd’s didn’t like older people in the cast – they might die. They didn’t like kids either as they might catch measles. To them, the ideal cast was a group of 20 year olds with no previous disease. The premiums were high but the insurance was very necessary as tremendous losses could be incurred.”
One child actor who was insured, was 13-year-old Chet Allen. He was spotted in 1952 and picked to appear in his first movie. Given his age, Universal International Pictures took out a £35,000 policy at Lloyd’s against the risk of his voice breaking before the picture was completed.
Another Hollywood child star, Shirley Temple, was insured by her production company in 1934 when she was seven years old. She was told by underwriters that she “must not take up arms in war” and that the policy would be cancelled if she was “killed whilst drunk or intoxicated.”
Over the years, many other unusual stipulations have been added to policies. For example, pianist Hazel Scott was told that she could no longer wash dishes after insuring her hands for $1 million.
Fellow pianist Joe Henderson also insured his hands at Lloyd’s in the 1950s. He was subsequently banned from performing handstands, duelling, steeple-chasing, fighting, shaking hands with anybody who weighed over 15 stone, or signing more than 500 autographs in a single day.
