Here’s one Americans weren’t expecting: If you’re a relatively calm New Orleans homeowner, because a) you’re alive and b) you’re insured, think again. Insurers won’t pay out. You protest that there was a hurricane. And you were covered for that.

No, your insurer says. Your house wasn’t damaged by a hurricane. It was damaged by a flood and you weren’t covered for that.

You may be insured for the aneurysm that starts travelling to your brain upon hearing this, but only if you die. If you survive the aneurysm, the phrase “pre-existing condition” will haunt your days and nights. Of course, it wasn’t a pre-existing condition until the hurricane hit, but it’s these fine issues of timing that make insurers so very rich and you so very homeless.

The only way you would be covered in New Orleans is if you had bought a second policy from the National Flood Insurance Program, which is, get this, part of the famed Federal Emergency Management Agency. Fewer than half of households had held such a policy, but given that FEMA was being run by a guy whose only qualification was having roomed in college with one of George W. Bush’s pals, and FEMA didn’t even have hurricane-issue Kleenex, don’t expect cash any time soon.

And even if you had flood insurance, what caused the flood? The hurricane, you say shakily. Nope, it could have been high seas or the levees giving way. It’s going to go to court, and if the court finds Lake Pontchartrain liable some time in 2012, I wish Americans luck in extracting cash from a slosh of poisoned water.

This is one field in which Americans don’t stand alone. We all suffer from insurance, one of the so-called “picky” industries, which matured, as humorist Alan Coren once wrote, in 1623 when Josiah Smallprint invented the phrase, to be inserted in all policies, “always provided that a pig flew past at the time the accident occurred.”

I’m paying special attention to insurance because my regular insurer (which is continually being sold) called something like Collapsica has just invited me to buy $255,000 in accidental death insurance, for $24.02 a month. Collapsica confides that “accidents are a daily part of our increasingly uncertain world.”

True enough in these times of hurricanes, floods and suicide bombs, but remember, none of the above is accidental. Hurricanes, I am informed by the extreme American Christian Right, are sent to destroy abortion clinics, floods are caused by cheapster governments and suicide bombs are caused by criminals. Insurers don’t cover criminal acts, even with a pig flying by at the time etc.

At first, I sent the letter back to Collapsica saying I had little confidence in an insurer that couldn’t get my name right. I am a Ms., not a Mrs. and as a feminist I rather stick to this point, unless the air conditioner breaks down in which case I’m willing to become Mrs. Husband’s Name and play the ditzy gal housewife with water spouting into the house as opposed to outside, so could you like get here now?

But I shredded that letter. Complaints to corporations are beyond pointless. Besides, I had a renewed need for accidental coverage, my wound still oozing after I was attacked by a mattress and an iron (long story).

But then I read the list of exclusions, under which Collapsica pays nothing should I die. Despite intense study, I cannot come up with any way I could buy the farm and still profit my family. The exclusions are so vast, you could call them the Canadian Shield.

If manly City of Toronto tree loppers burst into tears because of a clogged wood chipper and I got the thing started and become 20,000 bits of Heather because I had a warm heart (hearts), I wouldn’t be covered because I am taking drugs (iron supplements, glucosamine, Allegra, you name it, I’m taking it) not prescribed by a doctor.

If I were receiving dental or surgical treatment, I wouldn’t be covered. Note that timing is cleverly not mentioned. In other words, I don’t have to be in the chair or on the table at the time of my death, I just have to be going in for regular cleanings.

If I die of an infection, it has to have been caused by an external visible wound received in an accident. That means no SARS, tuberculosis, no superbugs, not even being stabbed by, pick a Tory, Stephen Harper, as they’ll claim that was no accident.

If I involuntarily inhale a gas that kills me, I’m not covered. No, I don’t know why, either. How doom-laden are these people? I envision an actuary dressed as the Grim Reaper raising his hand at the annual meeting. “Bhopal” or “Moscow Opera House,” he’ll say, thus justifying his salary for 33.2 years.

If I am being treated for any illness, it doesn’t matter if teenaged joy riders mash me into a bus stop. I’m not mash-covered.

If I accidentally injure myself while insane, I’m not covered. Look, I was sane when I decided to turn my mattress seasonally, but I have only Martha Stewart to back me up on that, and hey, she has “priors.”

I am covered on airplanes only if I am a fare-paying passenger. I take it this means that if I’m travelling on points, coverage is denied.

If I voluntarily ingest poison, say, added to a bottle of mango juice by an idiot terrorist even al-Qaeda doesn’t trust with Semtex, coverage is denied. But it wasn’t voluntary, I protest. I didn’t know it was poisoned. Attention is drawn to the phrase “voluntary or otherwise.”

Only a very stupid person would buy this insurance. Why then am I insured to the gills? Please let there be a passing pig I can ask.