Batman’s Insurance Policies

With The Dark Knight hitting theaters this weekend, we wondered how hard would it be for Batman to insure certain aspects of his life. Yup, this is the kind of stuff we think about around here.

The Batmobile

As one of Batman’s enemies, the Riddler, would say: Riddle me this: How would Bruce Wayne go about insuring his Batmobile? He very well couldn’t go to a Gieco and get it insured, that would give away his secret identity. How would that conversation go? “Hi, I need to insure the Batmobile . . but, uh, I’m not Batman.”

I could only imagine it would cost an arm and a leg to insure the Batmobile. It always costs more to insure a sports car, but what do we classify the Batmobile as? How exactly would Bruce Wayne file an insurance claim on the Batmobile?

I guess the smart move would be to not insure the Batmobile, but have you seen how much abuse that car takes? It is a multimillion dollar automobile to begin with; it would cost Bruce Wayne millions upon millions of dollars to fix each and every time it took some damage. I think that is the route that he would have to go though, because no insurance company is going to insure this guaranteed wreck.

Verdict: Uninsurable

Wayne Manor

If he is smart, Bruce Wayne already has a full insurance policy on his mansion, Wayne Manor. However, is the Bat Cave included in this? When one insures their house an inspector must do a check up of the place, but I highly doubt Bruce Wayne would lead the inspector into the Bat Cave.

It is fair to say that the Bat Cave wouldn’t be insured since it is not technically part of the house, but what about all the high tech equipment in the Bat Cave? Since that is still apart of Bruce Wayne’s property, all of his equipment would be included in the mansion’s insurance plan. Filing a claim would be difficult, however. If you remember in the movie Batman Forever, Two-Face and the Riddler destroyed the Bat Cave. I highly doubt Bruce Wayne is putting in a call to his home insurance provider saying he lost 5,000 batrangs as two notorious supervillians destroyed his secret cave.

Verdict: Insurable, minus the Bat Cave.

Bruce Wayne’s Life

Bruce Wayne is a billionaire with no family, life insurance does not seem to be needed. However, a life insurance policy would allow Bruce to leave a large amount of tax-free inheritance money behind. It is probably in his best interest to get a life insurance policy, or pay amazing amounts of taxes on the millions of dollars he would leave behind (to presumably Alfred, because he has no other family).

Agencies that insure the lives of big time clients often run risk assessment to see if the person’s life is financially worth insuring. This is where we run into a problem, because there is no way a company would choose to insure the life of Batman, no matter how cool of a marketing ploy it would be. Bruce Wayne could keep his life as Batman a secret, but when he died, it would be revealed he was Batman and this would make his policy null and void. Bruce will just have to keep his life uninsured and that lucky person who inherits his estate will have to pay quite the taxes on it.

Verdict: Uninsurable

Bruce Wayne’s Health

Bruce Wayne is rich enough and has enough gadgets to perform his own medical services upon himself. Plus, Alfred is a pretty darn good doctor when he needs to be, so there is really no need for any health insurance on Bruce Wayne or Batman’s part.

Verdict: Not needed

It is quite tricky for superheroes to insure themselves. Bruce Wayne can get away with minimal insurance due to the fact that he is so freaking rich. Take another superhero, like Spider-Man, and he has a much more complicated and frustrating insurance problem. Moral of the story for you would be superheroes: Be rich, be very rich.