Australia is a hotbed of shark attacks and/or shark attack reporting. In the last few years, there has either been an uptick in shark attacks or an uptick in national media reporting shark attacks. Either way, there are shark attacks in Australia, and shark attacks are scary. And one company is profiting off of it: not surprisingly, it’s an insurance company.
Now, insurance companies wouldn’t exist if bad things happened to people as much as insurance companies wanted people to think they do. If they had to pay out every single person they insure, they’d be out of business in a hot second. And if you’ve ever made a claim, you know that the insurance company you shell out your hard earned money to will fight tooth and nail to NOT pay you what you paid them to pay you. Big business! Ain’t it grand?
Although you might hear about a shark attack somewhere in the world every day, the chances of it happening to you are still incredibly small. But just think if it did! Limb from limb, blood spouting, screaming bloody murder, choking on salty death while a black-eyed, soulless creature from the deep chews your femurs off. It would be horrible! Wouldn’t you want money for it? Now you can pay Mona Vale insurance company money to pay your benefactors that money if it happens, which it will probably not, and Mona Vale will sit in a beach chair drinking mojitos and laughing at you.
“I think everybody who surfs is always kind of thinking about sharks,” said Benny Bradley, founder of the 1 Love Surfing Club, to the Daily Telegraph. The club partnered with the insurance company to make the shark insurance a thing. “That was one of the reasons why I thought ‘why not do some kind of insurance?'”
It’s not just shark attacks, either. If you’re part of 1 Love Surfing, you are carrying out “non-motorized saltwater ocean sports,”and you have any of the following terrible things happen to you, someone you know could be eligible to score up to $50,000 off your injury/death/disappearance.
It’s actually pretty cheap, too–just $130 a year. That’s just shy of $11 a month, which you’d probably spend on something stupid, anyway. You should do it, if you live in Australia! Or just buy beer. Actually, $130 will barely get you any beer in Australia, so maybe go with the insurance.
