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OFF BEAT: In a word — or 37,931 words — it's insurance

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Et tu, exclusions?

It takes Northampton, England-based specialty insurer Staysure Ltd. about twice the number of words to outline the terms of its travel insurance policy as it took William Shakespeare to retell the story of Julius Caesar’s assassination, according to an analysis by the London-based consumer group Fairer Finance L.L.P.

As part of its campaign for greater transparency in the consumer banking and insurance industries, Fairer Finance counted the total number of words contained in several U.K.-based banks’ and insurance companies’ terms and conditions documents and compared them with the word counts of literature’s greatest works.

Staysure’s current travelers’ coverage document was the longest among the insurance policies analyzed, totaling 37,931 words, nearly twice as many as the 20,929 words in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.”

The longest personal auto insurance policy belonged to Endsleigh Insurance Services Ltd. at 37,674 words, which is about 7,700 more words than it took George Orwell to satirize the reign of Joseph Stalin in his 1945 novel “Animal Farm.”

Lloyd’s of London turned in the longest homeowner’s policy at 26,052 words, about the same number of words contained in Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliette.”