MARK MY WORD: SOME INSURANCE POLICIES ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD

Worried about being abducted by an alien or turning into a vampire? Don't worry. Buy insurance.

For some people, insurance is out of this world.

A London insurance company has provided coverage against alien abductions. It's not your basic property and casualty insurance.

But the 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult weren't ordinary people either.

The cult members paid $1,000 on Oct. 10 for a policy that covered up to 50 members and would pay out $1 million a person for abduction, impregnation or death caused by aliens.

Los Angeles street gangs don't count as aliens, as least for insurance purposes.

Unfortunately, the mass suicide of the Heaven's Gate group has prompted the insurance company to stop writing alien-related policies.

Simon Burgess, the managing director of the Goodfellow Rebecca Ingrams Pearson insurance company, told The Associated Press last week that he was "shocked and saddened" by the suicides.

Of course, he didn't promise to pay up. There's a limit to shock and sadness. After all, suicides aren't covered unless they're really not suicides at all but alien abductions. How can you tell?

Burgess says Heaven's Gate cult members would have to prove they were abducted. That's a tall order when you're dead.

The Heaven's Gate group wasn't alone in concluding that alien-abduction insurance is a good investment.

Some 4,000 people worldwide bought the coverage.

Unfortunately for them, Burgess says the policies won't be renewed.

The company, however, continues to offer other unusual policies.

The insurance company insures virgins against immaculate conception, prostitutes against loss of earnings from headache and backache, anyone against becoming a werewolf or vampire, or dying or being seriously injured from paranormal activity, and unfaithful husbands against having a certain part of their anatomy cut off.

The John Wayne Bobbitt case may have made this last bit of coverage a little more risky. But they probably don't expect to see too many werewolves and vampires coming in to collect.

If insurance companies really want to get brave, they should insure parents against gum attaching itself to children's hair and major ketchup spills.

You didn't see this London insurer coming to the rescue when all those children were being munched on by that hungry doll a few months ago. But that wasn't an alien abduction or even an alien doll.

There also was no insurance for all those parents who had to cope with a shortage of Tickle Me Elmo dolls at Christmas.

Perhaps space aliens cornered the market, which would explain why Burgess' company didn't want to offer the coverage.

My family has a Tickle Me Elmo doll and we didn't kill any space aliens to get it.

Just the same, it wouldn't hurt to have a little insurance against any alien abduction of Elmo.

We'll just take our chances that he won't turn into a werewolf.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.