Insurance has always seen its fair share of claims around Christmastime, usually in the general insurance space and mostly related to fire incidents.
But deep in the Aviva archives are some splendid (and worrying) business and accident-related claims made around Christmas time in years past.
FT Adviser is pleased to bring these to you in the hope that your clients might learn from the mistakes of the past, and not drive around ferociously in a sleigh or be hit on the head by a decoration.
You might also like to take out a last-minute gift of some insurance for your loved ones. That will be a delight for the children on Christmas morning.
1971: Santa Claus is coming straight down
In 1971 Norwich Union had a business claim for damage caused when a street decoration of Father Christmas fell on a bus.
The claim from National Bus section read: “I was proceeding along the road in my bus when there was a big bang.
"When I pulled up at the bus stop I got out and walked across the road and looked on top of the bus and found Father Christmas lying on top of the bus.
"I stopped a passing policeman and he told me not to move the bus in case he [Santa] fell on somebody."
1904: Sleigh ride? Never again
A gentleman from Shrewsbury made a claim to General Accident after being injured one Christmastime. According to the archives, he was thrown from a sleigh and received the princely sum of £78 for his trouble.
I don't think Santa is from Shrewsbury, so it probably wasn't the big guy himself.
Christmas dinner - a turkey so undercooked it was running around
In 1888, Scottish Accident received a claim from a hotel proprietor in Dunstable, who "fell while trying to catch a turkey". He received £30.
Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? No, seriously, listen - and get out of the road
In 1887, a merchant from Greenock had to make a personal accident claim to the old Railway Passengers insurance scheme, after he was "knocked down by a sledge".
Rocking around the Christmas Tree
A spokesperson for Aviva describes how, during the Second World War, on 19 December 1939, a Christmas party was held in the dining hut at East Hall the evacuated offices of Sun Life.
"According to the description in the staff magazine, ‘an immense Christmas tree reached the ceiling, walls were festooned with holly and the air thick with paper chains of every size and colour'.
"One member of staff appeared during the dinner, dressed as Father Christmas, in a costume made from his wife’s red velvet dressing gown, a tin hat, and a mask."
Later on, the canteen staff at Norwich Union in 1967 wished their colleagues a merry Christmas with 2,000 servings of Christmas pudding.
According to the spokesperson: "The ingredients required for this mammoth bake off included 60lb of raisins, 20 pints of beer, and a lot of mixing."
A gift for Georgie, and Mary, and Seth
The oldest surviving Norwich Union fire policy in the archive collection at Aviva's Norwich offices is policy No 103, which was taken out by Seth Wallace, a blacksmith of New Buckenham, on December 25, 1797.
