ZZ Top front man insures beard with Lloyd's

Billy Gibbons of rockers ZZ Top says his beard is covered by Lloyd's of London./ REUTERS

Lloyd's of London is famed for insuring the weird and the wonderful, and one of the world's most iconic beard-wearers recently confirmed that his facial furniture is insured by the more-than-300-year-old insurance market.

Billy Gibbons of bearded rockers ZZ Top told Fox 411 that his beard is insured at Lloyd's but would not divulge for how much.

It isn't the first time that Lloyd's has underwritten risks to facial hair.

Years before today's hipsters began stroking their beards while sipping craft beers, 40 members of a “whiskers club” in Derbyshire, England, insured their beards against fire and theft, according to Lloyd's website.

And former Aussie cricketer Merv Hughes insured his splendid moustache at Lloyd's.

But underwriters concerned about the risk of aggregation of facial hair losses may take some comfort in the contention by a British academic that we have reached “peak beard.”

Late last year, medical historian Alun Withey from the University of Exeter, England, launched a three-year study entitled “Do Beards Matter?”

Mr. Withey told the Daily Mail newspaper that beards were beginning to face a backlash caused, in part, by the emergence of a new social tribe known as Yuccies – young urban creatives – which prefers a clean-shaven look.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is the poster boy for the new grouping, he said.