Ticket insurance? Might have beensome buyers at Michigan last weekend

Would you stay or would you go? And would the answer change if you got your money back?

First off, I’ve got to admit that I’m like most of us. I’ve got mixed feelings about insurance companies and many of the people who work for them. One insurer, in particular, is doing me a ton of good – but could still do much better – in helping defray the cost of some expensive treatments my doctors seem to think I need. And I’ve wrecked a car or two along the way, so I am well familiar with and appreciate the good that such enterprises are capable of doing.

But I’m still having trouble reconciling that good part of the picture with the royal screwing a lot of people got on the gulf coast and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And then there was the flooded-out family in the Midwest I saw the short item about on CNN this week. They paid for flood insurance, but their claim got shot down anyway because they didn’t have coverage against mudslides specifically.

Duh! What caused the mud to slide? Reckon it could have been the flood? Same with the Katrina insurance victims. Suppose that Category 4 hurricane they’d insured themselves against had anything at all to do with all that rising water?

Still, I was heartened to learn about something else good about insurance companies this week when I got an e-mail about ticket insurance. So Bob’s chalking another one up in the plus column for the industry.

Race fans are incredibly loyal to their sport. So when it rains on race day, a lot of ticket buyers are going to hang in as long as it takes to see the race, whether that’s a day or even two later. (Please see Tuesday’s race at Michigan.)

Face it, some fans’ loyalty is partly simple economics. With some NASCAR tickets now costing roughly the same as a three-bedroom, two and a half-bath ranch in east Charlotte, it’s hard to let them go, even if you could. And, admit it, there are few sights sadder than a guy standing out there in a driving rain Sunday afternoon trying to sell his tickets for what’s suddenly become Monday’s race.

According to a survey done by World Access, a specialty insurance provider based in Richmond, every year as many as one in 12 of us misses an event for which we’ve bought a ticket in advance. Usually, it’s jury duty, an accident, a family obligation or something like that. And, sometimes, some of us – having already exhausted all of our excuses and good will at the office - simply have to go back to work the day after the rainout.

The company’s Event Ticket Protector already works with tickets at Dover International Speedway and, beginning next season, World Access will partner with International Speedway Corp., ISC being the part of the France empire that runs the family’s tracks, among other enterprises related to NASCAR.

For roughly 5 percent of the cost of your ticket, you can be covered when rain falls all over your plans. The transaction is handled when you order/buy the ticket, so it’s fairly painless. And it might spare you the pain of having to eat all of the cost when the rain, rain won’t go away and come again another day.

It’s a good start for race fans and it’s apparently been working well with other entertainment options, concerts and the like. But I’m thinking there are a ton of other ways an insurance company might help NASCAR fans, maybe even the teams we enjoy watching and supporting.

What right-thinking member of red army, for example, doesn’t wish he or she could be compensated for all the red-and-white shirts, caps, ashtrays and decals bearing the No. 8? A little money back might provide a head-start on new merchandise, assuming they’ll be sticking with Dale Earnhardt Jr. after he moves to Hendrick Motorsports.

How about a Juan Pablo Motoya rider on your NASCAR policy?

If JPM wrecks your favorite driver – or wrecks someone else and then gets into a pushing, shoving and shouting match with your favorite driver anyway - you get some of your money back.

Maybe Michael Waltrip fans could buy some qualifying coverage.

Love Waltrip‘s new NAPA commercials, by the way, in which he reads “messages” from fans about his inability to make a lot of races this season with his new Toyota operation. An insurance company could cover at least part of the ticket’s cost for Waltrip’s, perhaps even Dale Jarrett’s fans. Sorry, David Reutimann is actually making races, so his fans might not be eligible.

Would the premium be too high or might Michael even insure himself against missing all those races?