June 13 (Bloomberg) -- The World Cup is risky business for England. People suffer. Things break. Accidents happen.

Take the case of Adrian Brown's pet Spitfire, the World War II British fighter plane.

``It didn't work,'' Brown laments, caressing his inflatable toy aircraft on a Frankfurt street corner sticky with beer the evening before England accidentally beat Paraguay 1-0 in its opening game.

The 36-year-old Londoner who has a window-cleaning business for high-rise buildings says he was directing the Spitfire, about the size of a large dachshund with wings, at German fans in the crowd of street revelers while hunting for a ticket to the game.

``I found two, paid 450 euros ($567) for each one,'' Brown says with a deep sigh. ``Turned out to be a fake. It was depressing, a rip-off.''

Wayne Rooney's mangled metatarsal, the coaching of Sven- Goran Eriksson or the inability of Brown's Spitfire to shoot down a real match ticket, the woes and whinges of the England World Cup fan are many. In the past, a few beers and a new manager were the only remedies for such sorrows.

No longer. Now England has Simon Burgess, the 45-year-old managing director of British Insurance Ltd., a company that offers fiscal protection against the misfortunes of being an England fan.

``We have sold more than 1,000 policies, a total of 1 billion pounds ($1.84 billion) of exposure against England leaving Germany precipitately,'' says Burgess, who operates BritishInsurance.com. ``We can insure anything England fans are worried about losing.''

`Mental Trauma'

Burgess says ``business is bizarre'' and the actuarial science of sorting genuine English soccer calamities from disingenuous ones is thorny, with more complications than a Florida hurricane insurance policy.

The former Lloyd's of London underwriter says each contract would have an independent panel of sports commentators and psychiatric experts whose job would be to examine a policy- holder's claim that England's World Cup exit was premature and that it had scrambled his ability to function.

Earlier this spring, for instance, Burgess agreed to indemnify England fan Paul Hucker for more than 1 million pounds in case he suffers ``mental trauma'' resulting from the team's first-round games against Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and Sweden. The premium costs about $195 and is one of hundreds of similar shelter-from-the-Sven policies his Essex-based firm has established for England fans.

For about the same price, Burgess says he's insured the virginity of three women in Inverness, Scotland, who believe they will immaculately conceive the second coming of Christ.

Alien Policies

``I have Scottish fans taking out mental-health policies that pay for treatment if England wins the World Cup,'' says Burgess, who has also sold 30,000 policies to California residents fearful of being abducted by aliens.

Burgess says the policies are legitimate and that his clients are as daft as brushes.

``I didn't take out a policy, but I'm starting to have second thoughts,'' says Stephen Spencer, a 49-year-old carpet fitter from Manchester, England, who traveled to Frankfurt to watch a Paraguayan score the winning goal for England. ``The World Cup is life to us.''

England may well be gone by the end of the month. And right now, one day before the team travels to Nuremberg for its June 15 match against Trinidad and Tobago, all catastrophe models suggest prudent fans should purchase a fidelity bond, an insurance product designed to cover policy holders against losses incurred as a result of fraudulent acts.

Eriksson's Mantra

On the practice pitch or in the stadium, England coach Eriksson continues to pace the field as if it were a mangrove swamp. He shrugs now and then for the television cameras, with the look of a man more at home in a cocktail lounge. He refuses to answer questions. He jabbers the script put forth by the English Football Association: ``We are one of four or five teams who can win the World Cup,'' he says over and over, without a smile.

The whispers that aerial striker Peter Crouch plays like ``a sack of chisels'' are getting louder by the day, and England's once-brisk hero Michael Owen will spend the rest of the tournament shuffling around the field like Ratso Rizzo in ``Midnight Cowboy.''

``The inept performance of England gives us concern,'' Burgess says.

Already feeling frail with what Eriksson diagnosed as heat fatigue against Paraguay, England had yesterday off, enough time to have a few drinks and, Burgess says, call a reinsurance broker.

To contact the reporter on this story: A. Craig Copetas in Paris at ccopetas@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 12, 2006 19:28 EDT