By far, the most popular category for unique risks described toNU fell in the area of entertainment–with more than a dozeninvolving people engaged in strange hobbies or assembled asspectators at organized events.

The biggest celebratory event risk in the group, written by theE&S unit of Boston's largest insurer, was the Boston Pops July4 concert of 2005, complete with fireworks.

A 30-year-old tradition, the event attracts 500,000 people, butits producers had a clean history with respect to insurance claims,according to Scott Bayer, senior vice president for LibertyInternational Underwriters, a New York unit of Liberty Mutual.

The risk was unusual for LIU because of its grand size, Mr.Bayer reported, noting that potential claims relate to injuriesfrom food sold by vendors, standard slip-and-fall incidents thatthe insured could be responsible for, assaults, or claims fromfireworks injury or damage.

There's also a “parameter-risk type exposure,” he said,explaining that when half-a-million people gather in one place,“sometimes you just don't know what's going to happen.”

Losses would have to be catastrophic for the insurance torespond, he said, noting that LIU's policy covered contingentexposures for the event producer–fireworks exposure in excess offireworks contractors' primary coverage, liability exposures abovethose covered by primary policies of individual vendors, and gapsin coverage that might cause claims to fall to the insured.

Attention to loss control convinced LIU to accept the risk, hesaid. “They worked very well with the City of Boston,” keepingemergency service personnel on site as well as a large contingentof Boston police officers, with the fire department on call torespond to issues arising from fireworks.

(In 2005, Liberty Mutual sponsored the celebration, but Mr.Bayer said it was a relationship with a wholesale broker thatbrought the business to LIU.)

While Mr. Bayer reported no known claims from the Boston Popsconcert, some events are fraught with perils that even insuranceunderwriters can't anticipate–like an assassin's bullet that causedthe motion picture Oscars to be handed out a day late in 1981.

Claims for lost revenues under a cancellation insurance policyfor the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences probablyweren't paid that year–when the television broadcast of the awardswas preempted by an assassination attempt on President RonaldReagan far from the event site–but they have been covered since,according to Aggi Pharo, vice president of the program division ofRisk Specialist Companies, a unit of AIG.

Eliminating a gray area of coverage, AIG manuscripted wordingspecifically stating that “any attempt at assassination of thepresident or a national figure” would trigger event cancellationcoverage, she said. That's how AIG got the business, she said. And“that's a risk that is covered today.”

David Price, executive vice president and chief underwritingofficer of Burns & Wilcox, took on a different type ofchallenge when he worked to develop an entire program of coveragefor owners of powered parachutes.

In an e-mail, Mr. Price described a powered parachute as “a one-or two-seat ultra-light flying machine consisting of a go-cart-likestructure with a propeller on the back,” with a “sausage-likeparachute” rather than a rigid structure for the wing.

About four years ago, he said, an agent with several clientsthat manufactured the units reported these manufacturers wereconcerned because parachute buyers could not get insurance. “Theaviation insurers would not consider them because at the time theywere not regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration…Otherinsurers did consider them 'aircraft' and would not… writeaviation,” he explained.

“I personally like to fly and was intrigued by this challenge”to develop the first insurance program of all-risk coverage on themachine and third-party liability, he noted. “I could understandthe concept of a simple aircraft that could be flown by most peopleand which above all is very safe.”

Tapping into longstanding relationships with some Lloyd'sunderwriters, Mr. Price convinced them to provide the neededcoverage. Liability limits average $300,000 to $500,000 for unitsvalued at $16,000 to $18,000, he said–adding that since inception,there have been very few claims and no serious accidents, while “acoverage need has been satisfied at an underwriting profit.”

Those flights sound sedate when stacked up against an eventcovered by Scottsdale Insurance–the U.S. version of Pamplona'sRunning of The Bulls. “We did the spectator coverage–not thefoolish people that were running with the bulls,” notedunderwriting vice president David McDermid, explaining thatspectator's watching the Arizona event in 2002 were positionedabove the streets and far out of harm's way.

A less bullish coverage idea surfaced on a list sent to NU byMarkel–spectator liability for a “Cow Pie Bingo” event inPennsylvania. (For curious readers, Cow Pie Bingo is a charityevent in which a cow roams in designated areas where squares havebeen marked off. Bingo players place bets on the squares, and theplayer choosing the square in which the cow makes its first depositis the winner. Variations involve multiple cows.)

One insurer found another risk in the entertainment-with-animalscategory beyond distasteful, according to Monte Stringer, executivevice president for Dallas-based wholesaler U.S. Risk–propertycoverage for a sports bar featuring cock fighting.

“It's actually legal in Louisiana and the agent thought we werecrazy for questioning him on this,” Mr. Stringer wrote in ane-mail, reporting the experience of one of U.S. Risk's Louisianabrokers.

With its masonry construction, this risk would have otherwisebeen “no big deal,” but the “dirt floor, drain in the center of thearena for blood and cages for the birds were huge questions” for aninspection company working for the insurer. The insurer stayed onthe risk until it found out the truth about the drain and cagecontents, declining to continue coverage for ethical and moralreasons.