From leaping sheep to a champagne decorking gone awry

A lot can go wrong in 325 years, as British insurer Aviva PLC recalled recently in a fit of nostalgia commemorating its more than three centuries of paying out commercial claims.

Like the time a dentist was kicked through a window by a patient coming out of anesthesia, or the time a sheep jumped through a glass showroom window, or once, in 1878, when a hotelkeeper in London suffered a blow to the eye from the cork of a champagne bottle he was opening, as reported by PA Media in London.

Those are examples Aviva PLC has revealed in its all-time tally of unusual but valid claims.

Historical highlights include Aviva’s payout of securities stolen in the Great Train Robbery in 1963 and a payout in 1984 from a stolen fishmonger’s van caught in the infamous siege at the Libyan embassy: the van was parked nearby and could not be moved until the siege ended, by which time the fish had rotted, the media outlet reported.