Anonymous businessmen from Spain have taken out a professional insurance policy on each one of Paul, the Psychic Octopus' tentacles to the tune of $8 million total to ensure that no harm comes to them before the World Cup Final Match on Sunday.
Although Paul is being housed in Oberhausen, Germany, a top London insurers has agreed to write the insurance policy for the Spanish businessmen under an international insurance law that allows major insurers the over-reaching authority to insure celebrities and other well-known entities against any harmful acts that may occur to them which would render them useless and unable to perform the task they originally set out to do, i.e. predict the outcome of the World Cup Soccer Championship Game.
Insurance spokesperson, John Gottshawl, claims this type of policy gives the same kind of financial backing to Paul, the Psychic Octopus that it would any international star. "We not only insures human parts such as Tina Turner's legs and Susan Boyle's voice, they also insure animals and animal parts."
Gottshawl gave an example of some of the more unusual animal parts the company has insured over the years.
"We started a long, long time ago with Mr. Ed, the talking horse's throat, and over the years we've insured the reproductive organs of the dog that gave birth to the 101 Dalmations, as well the cells used to clone Dolly, the first-ever cloned sheep, so insuring Paul's tentacles is not a stretch for us."
Said Gottshaw, "It's not so unusual to insure the seemingly uninsurable. We feel that if there is a policy to be written and a premium to be charged, we don't care what anyone wants in that policy."
In fact," he said, "right now we have written insurance policies for more than half the Dutch and Spanish players' legs who'll be playing in the game on Sunday. It is one of the more heavily insured sporting events in the history of the World Cup with Paul decidedly tipping the scales."
