You think you’ve heard it all when it comes to health insurance? Trust me, you haven’t. The weirdest health insurance claims you won’t believe are true aren’t just some urban legends floating around the internet—they’re real, documented, and in some cases, the insurance companies actually paid out. If you’re living in the U.S., you know how health insurance can be a mix of lifesaver and headache, depending on the day. But every now and then, a claim pops up that makes you wonder if the world’s just a giant sitcom we’re all stuck in.
Let’s start with a famous one that made its way into insurance folklore: a man in Florida who was treated for injuries after getting attacked by a squirrel. Yes, a squirrel. According to the actual ER report, the little critter jumped from a tree, landed on his head, and refused to let go until he flung himself into a swimming pool. The ER bill? Covered. Why? Because the injuries were considered “medically necessary treatment for accidental bodily harm.” You can’t make this stuff up—there’s literally a claim record for it.
And speaking of animals, here’s another: a Minnesota woman filed a claim for “psychological counseling” after her neighbor’s goat escaped and chased her for three blocks. The insurance company initially questioned it—because, well, “goat chase” isn’t exactly a line item in most policies—but eventually approved coverage under mental health treatment for “trauma due to a specific phobia.” Her case actually got cited in a 2017 article by the Journal of Health Insurance Law.
Now, not all weird claims are about animals. Some are about the way humans accidentally injure themselves in the most bizarre ways. There’s the famous “toothbrush-in-ear” incident. A guy in Oregon tried to clean his ear with the handle of an electric toothbrush (don’t ask why), got startled by his dog barking, and—yep—injured his eardrum. The urgent care bill? Over $1,200. His insurer paid, but probably added a note in his file like, “Don’t try this at home.”
Sometimes, the claims are weird because of the sheer creativity in how people describe them. In 2014, a woman in New York filed a claim saying she had “repetitive strain injury from excessive laughing.” Turns out, she attended a week-long comedy festival, laughed so hard and so often she strained her abdominal muscles. The doctor confirmed it. Insurance paid for physical therapy. Yes, laughing too much can literally be a billable medical issue.
But here’s where it gets even more interesting—some of the weirdest claims reveal loopholes in health insurance coverage. For example, in certain states, if you get injured while participating in a “recognized community event,” your medical bills might be covered even if the event is ridiculous. Like the man in Texas who broke his ankle during an annual “adult tricycle race.” His insurer had no clause excluding accidents from “non-motorized vehicle competitions,” so they had to pay. The race organizers? Probably still laughing.
Of course, every insurance company has its own internal system for handling these. Claims adjusters will tell you that the real challenge isn’t whether the claim is weird—it’s whether it meets the policy’s criteria for “covered medical expenses.” That’s why some bizarre stories, like the “woman who burned herself while trying to make s’mores with a blowtorch indoors” (yes, real case), end up being denied. In her case, the insurer argued it was “self-inflicted due to reckless behavior,” which is basically a fancy way of saying, “What were you thinking?”
Still, when a claim is legitimate, insurers have no choice but to pay, no matter how absurd it sounds. There’s a case out of California where a man was treated for second-degree burns after hugging a friend who had just put on boiling-hot body lotion. How does that even happen? Well, apparently the lotion had been microwaved (why? still unclear) and spilled on his chest during the hug. Medical necessity? Yes. Covered? Also yes.
And while a lot of these claims seem funny, they actually point to something serious about the U.S. healthcare system: policies are written in a way that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. That’s why some people end up getting coverage for “chasing chickens in a charity farm race” while others get denied for “falling off a hoverboard indoors.” It’s not always about fairness—it’s about policy language.
Up next in part two, I’m going to dive deeper into some verified insurance claim archives, look at how adjusters really think about these “out there” cases, and share a few jaw-dropping ones from international coverage too. Spoiler: it’s not just Americans who file weird claims.
If you thought the first batch was wild, wait until you hear what came up when I dug into some international claim archives and old insurance news reports. Turns out, weird health insurance claims are universal. They’re just as bizarre in London, Sydney, or Tokyo as they are in Ohio.
One British case from 2015 still makes the rounds in insurance training seminars: a man claimed emergency dental treatment after biting into a sandwich… and breaking his tooth on a bullet. Yep, an actual bullet was inside the bread roll. The investigation confirmed that the sandwich had been made from imported meat that somehow contained a small-caliber bullet fragment. The NHS covered part of the treatment, but his private insurer paid for the cosmetic work. And no, no one could figure out how the bullet got in there.
Over in Australia, there’s the “seagull attack” claim. A woman eating chips by the beach had a whole flock of seagulls swarm her, knocking her over and causing a fractured wrist. Her private health insurance covered the X-rays and cast. The insurer even sent her a get-well card with a cartoon seagull on it—probably the nicest insult you can get after such a bizarre accident.
But here’s the thing—many of these weird claims aren’t from freak accidents. They’re from perfectly ordinary moments that go wrong in the most unusual way. In 2018, a man in Colorado filed a claim after accidentally swallowing one of his AirPods while falling asleep listening to music. The device had to be surgically removed. His insurance paid the hospital bill—though the AirPod, sadly, was not covered.
Some claims are funny on paper but were very real and scary in the moment. Like the case in Japan where a woman fainted from holding in a sneeze during a board meeting—she was embarrassed to sneeze out loud, tried to stifle it, ruptured a blood vessel in her neck, and had to be hospitalized. Covered? Absolutely. And now it’s literally used as a warning in first aid classes: “Don’t hold in sneezes.”
Insurance adjusters who’ve been in the game for decades will tell you there’s a pattern: the weirder the claim, the more paperwork it usually takes. Why? Because they have to justify why a policy meant to cover something like “appendicitis surgery” should also cover “eye injury from exploding champagne cork at a wedding.” (That one, by the way, ended up being paid under “accidental ocular trauma.”)
Now, you might think insurers secretly enjoy these oddball stories, but the truth is they cost time, money, and in some cases, public relations damage. A U.S. case in 2019 went viral when a man’s claim for back pain treatment was initially denied because the insurer believed his injury was from “recreational tree climbing.” The real cause? He was an arborist working a paid job. The story blew up online, forcing the insurer to reverse its decision within days.
And then there’s the gray area where health insurance overlaps with travel coverage. A Texas couple on vacation in Mexico had their medical bills covered after they both got food poisoning—not from street food, but from a five-star resort buffet. The weird part? The insurer covered it under “foreign body ingestion,” a clause usually meant for swallowing things you shouldn’t… like Legos, or fish bones.
Some cases even blur the line between health and pet insurance. In 2021, a man in Washington State filed a claim after contracting ringworm from his pet iguana. The dermatologist confirmed it was a zoonotic infection, which made it eligible for coverage under his health policy. The iguana, of course, remained uninsured.
So, why do these stories matter beyond the entertainment value? Because they highlight how unpredictable life—and medical costs—can be. They also show that insurance policies are full of strange, sometimes exploitable clauses that can work in your favor… if you read the fine print. Knowing that “weird” doesn’t automatically mean “denied” can save people thousands of dollars.
And if there’s one takeaway from all these stories, it’s this: your health insurer has probably seen it all. Whether it’s an ear injury from a toothbrush, burns from microwaved lotion, or trauma from a runaway goat, the job of insurance is—at least in theory—to step in when the unexpected happens. Even if the “unexpected” makes everyone in the claims department do a double take.
So next time you think your own injury story is too strange to be covered, remember—someone out there got reimbursed for laughing too hard. Literally.