

The insurance arrangement maintained some strict requirements. Image Credit: CC 2.0 Dave Conner

A strange contest held in 1971 led to Lloyd's of London agreeing to insure Scotland's mysterious denizen.

The peculiar series of events began when Scottish whiskey producer Cutty Sark set up a competition offering a prize of exactly one million pounds to anyone who could capture the monster.Not long after the contest was set up however the company had second thoughts and, believing that there was actually a good chance that someone would be able to claim the prize, asked Lloyd's to underwrite the competition.Lloyd's agreed, but only on the condition that if someone actually did capture the Loch Ness Monster they would be allowed to keep it for themselves.They also requested that the creature be a minimum of 20ft in length and that it would have to be formally recognized as the monster by the curators of the Natural History Museum in London.Suffice to say Cutty Sark never filed a claim and Lloyd's went on to make a tidy profit.