President Obama is currently in Australia. He was given a very unique gift from the government of the Northern Territory. I am fairly certain that this particular gift doesn’t even exist in the United States of America. What was it? He received crocodile insurance.
President Obama is currently in Australia, and will soon be heading to Bali, Indonesia, for an East Asian economic summit. It turns out that President Obama is the first President of the United States to visit the Northern Territory of Australia.
Typically, when the President of the United States pays a visit to a foreign country, the political leaders of that country give a gift to the President of the United States. I think that America practices this same tradition when Presidents of other countries come here to visit.
This means that President Obama has received a wide variety of interesting gifts. However, today, he received a gift from the government of the Northern Territory of Australia that he says is the “most unique gift” that he has ever received as President.
What was it? Paul Henderson, the Northern Territory Chief Minister, has announced that President Obama has been given an insurance policy that would pay the President’s family $50,000 (Australian dollars), if President Obama is attacked by crocodiles while visiting the Northern Territory. In short, he has been given the gift of crocodile insurance.
President Obama has stated that his wife will be very relieved to hear that he has been given this type of insurance. He also made a joke about it:
“I have to admit when we reformed health care in America, crocodile insurance is one thing we left out”
Crocodile insurance is not a joke, however. It really exists in Australia. The Northern Territory has harsh weather, and it has crocodiles. Everyone knows that crocodiles are dangerous creatures who are quite capable of attacking and killing a human. It seems unlikely that President Obama would be taking the time to casually stroll along the banks of a river where crocodiles are known to live while he is visiting Australia. However, it never hurts to have insurance protection against something bad that could, potentially, happen.
As far as I have been able to tell, I don’t think that crocodile insurance exists in the United States of America. Some states, like Florida and Louisiana, do have alligators, though. It seems to me that a life insurance policy would be beneficial for people who live in those areas. I don’t think life insurance excludes “death by alligator”, (or crocodile).
Image by William Warby on Flickr