Taste buds are vital to any chocolatier, and the ones belonging to Hayleigh Curtis may be the most precious around. So much so that the scientist and taster for Cadbury has had her taste buds insured for £1 million.
Curtis is part of the company’s Bourneville-based innovation team, who are essentially a whole team of Willy Wonkas. It’s their job to create and test every new Cadbury product, experimenting with different flavours until they come up with confectionary perfection.
Curtis explained her decision: “There is a lot of science that sits behind our chocolate innovation – from mouth feel to melting temperatures of chocolate – so with my taste buds safeguarded I look forward to creating lots more deliciously tasting chocolate for years to come.”
There are some provisos that come with Ms Curtis’s policy, however. Now that her taste is by far her most valuable sense, she must be extra careful not to do anything that might make her astute taste buds function any less than flawlessly.
As a condition of the business insurance policy, she can no longer eat spicy food (with a Scoville rating of higher than 350,000) or the notoriously poisonous Fugu fish, and, bizarrely, she is forbidden from taking up sword swallowing. So, while joining the circus and entering a chilli eating contest may be off the agenda, Curtis can look forward to continuing her successful career with her tongue well protected.
Insuring body parts vital to one’s trade is not uncommon. Lloyd’s have seen many other unusual claims from workers whose livelihood relies on one of their features, such as the whisky aster who got his noes insured for £1.6 million and the royal beautician who insured her hands.
At Tredstone, we know that businesses may have some very unique requests about what they want covered when it comes to their commercial liability insurance. Our team of experts will help you assess your own risks and come up with a tailored insurance policy that will offer you the best protection. Get in touch with us today.