Do you deserve a place on the list of clumsiest Brits?

Updated
Mobile phone falling into water
Mobile phone falling into water



Apparently we're a nation of people with butterfingers and two left feet. The majority of all home insurance claims aren't for burglary or flooding - but are down to clumsiness and carelessness. One insurer has compiled a list of people it thinks qualify as the clumsiest in the country.

Homeprotect.co.uk says that 31% of insurance claims in March were for accidental damage, compared to 22% for theft, 22% for storm damage, and 13% for accidental loss. Mobile phones topped the list of items claimed for - with dropping them in the toilet making up half of all mobile phone claims. However, people have been far more creative in their clumsiness.

The company has published its list of the clumsiest claims. Here are our top seven.

1. A claimant was carrying a cup of coffee to their desk, when they tripped over the dog and spilt the coffee on their laptop keyboard.

2. In a slight variation on the theme, another coffee drinker was using their laptop when their children decided to have a lightsaber fight nearby - with predictable consequences.

3. A music-enthusiast was doing the hoovering, when they knocked over a music stand. This wouldn't have been the end of the world, except that it fell into the TV and cracked it.

4. Hoovering was also responsible for a claim for a necklace, sucked up by the cleaner and subsequently mangled.

5. Given the damage people inflicted with their hoovers, cars surprisingly only made this list once, when someone reversed into their front garden wall, and brought it to the verge of collapse.

6. A claimant who could be described as 'not a morning person' dropped their phone in their cereal.

7. Another phone-related claim was from the genius who rested their phone on a radiator overnight - which caused it to melt.

Can we do better?

They all show a fairly impressive level of carelessness, but as for whether they are the seven clumsiest people in the UK, that's quite a claim - and there are plenty of other contenders.

One strong hopeful is the man who last month tried to break into a garage in South Wales. He got onto the roof, fell through it, and knocked himself out on the floor.

Back in 2011, one of the men appearing in court charged with burglary during the riots became a YouTube sensation for his clumsiness. He was trying to avoid having his photo taken, by putting a newspaper in front of his face. Unfortunately, this meant he couldn't see either, and was filmed walking into a lamppost.

Perhaps the most impressive clumsiness of all time, however, was a decade ago, when a visitor to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge slipped on a loose shoelace and fell down some stairs, knocking over three valuable Qing vases. The vases were described by the museum as being in 'very small pieces'.

But what do you think? Do you know anyone who could rival these levels of clumsiness? Let us know in the comments.

Watch This Clumsy Burglar Fall Through a Popeye's Ceiling
Watch This Clumsy Burglar Fall Through a Popeye's Ceiling


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