Insurance you didn't know you had

By Liz Pulliam Weston

If you took an ax to your kitchen floor, the damage typically wouldn't be covered by your homeowners insurance. Insurers generally don't cover intentional damage, and whacking a floor with an ax is considered pretty intentional.

Except when the blows are inflicted in the course of dispatching a rattlesnake that slithered into your kitchen, threatening your wife and 3-year-old child.

That's what happened to a friend of Bill Sirola, a spokesman for the nation's largest homeowners insurer, State Farm, and the insurer paid up without a murmur.

"It took him five or six good whacks to kill the thing," Sirola said.

There are plenty of things that insurance won't pay for. But in writing about insurance over the years, I've stumbled across some unexpected things that are covered. Some are pretty esoteric, like actresses insuring their legs or policies that pay out in case of alien abduction. But others are fairly common, and I've picked my 11 favorites among them, starting with my No. 1 of all time:

Waterbed liability

Cue the rotating disco ball and the 1970s funk music, because many renters and condo insurance policies provide coverage if your bodacious berth bursts.

The insurance applies regardless of what caused the leakage, as long as you didn't intentionally break the bed.

Sometimes the coverage is built in; in other cases, you may need to pay a little extra for a waterbed-liability endorsement. But once you have it, you're covered for damage to your own pad as well as whatever you inflict on your downstairs neighbor.

Tombstone damage

If a vandal destroys or carries off a loved one's headstone, it might be covered under your homeowners insurance.

State Farm is among the companies that offer this protection to policyholders. The damage would be subject to the same restrictions that apply to other coverage, meaning the destruction:

• Exceeds your deductible.

• Is a covered loss.

Theft and vandalism damage are typically covered losses, but catastrophes often aren't.

"If it gets swept away by a flood, it's not covered" under the homeowners policy, Sirola said. "If it's shaken apart by an earthquake, it's not covered."

Massage

I admit it: I'm a massage junkie, and I've turned my husband into one, too. A vacation isn't really complete until we've sneaked into a spa for a rubdown. So far, though, it's always been on our own dime.

It turns out that you can get your shiatsu subsidized, depending on your coverage and the circumstances. Your doctor can prescribe massage to help you recover from a car accident or an on-the-job injury, for example. If your insurance covers chiropractic care, it may also cover massage ordered by the chiropractor.

Check your policy for details or talk to your employer's human-resources department.

Weight control

Run-of-the-mill weight-loss programs aren't covered by most insurance policies, according to the National Institutes of Health, but your insurer may cover prescription weight-control medications and weight-loss surgery.

The latter typically costs $25,000 to $30,000, so coverage is a really big deal. To qualify, though, you have to be morbidly obese -- 80 pounds or more overweight for women, 100 pounds or more for men. You may also qualify if you're not quite that heavy but you have a serious weight-related condition, such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease or severe apnea.

Even if your weight-loss program isn't covered by insurance, you may still be able to defray the cost if it's prescribed by a doctor. In that case, you can use the pretax money you've put in your flexible-spending account at work to pay for it. Flexible-spending plans allow you to pay for a host of other medical expenses that may not be covered by insurance, including smoking-cessation programs, birth control, fertility treatments, orthodontia and over-the-counter medications, including aspirin. Oh, yes, and doctor-prescribed massage.

Continued: Drunks, kids and canines

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