CAST your mind back only a couple of months and you might recall reading about or hearing experts bombarding you with statistics on the chances of a huge comet careering into planet earth in around 30 years' time. For most people it was just another justification for nicking off to the pub. However, for one man it signalled a boom in business.

Mike St Lawrence, owner of the St Lawrence Insurance Agency in Florida was delighted. He claims his agency is unique, selling, among other things, alien abduction insurance and asteroid impact insurance to people dotted all over the planet.

Since Mike launched the company on the Internet two years ago, he's seen profits rise, as it has proved a cost-effective way of marketing his product, attracting plenty of media coverage in the process.

Operating from his house - turned business quarters - Mike says that he set up the business in 1987 in response to a book called Communion by Whitley Strieber. ''This was the first time the alien abduction phenomena had really been discussed and so we seized on the gap in the market and set up the agency with the help of some Japanese investors.''

However, relatively recently the Internet has completely opened the world up to his company, and he regularly takes calls and

e-mails from people all over the globe, who stumble upon his site, although he does admit that most callers are from his own country. It's hardly surprising, since latest statistics show that hundreds of thousands of Americans believe that they have been pawns to some alien beings. Reports of sightings are on the rise also throughout the world.

Mike adheres to a strict code of conduct when he sells someone

a policy.

He has to ask three key questions. If they answer ''yes'' to two they are disqualified from the insurance. These are:

''Do you have a sense of humour?'' ''Do you take this insurance seriously?'' and finally ''Were your parents related before they were married?''

Most people buy the coverage for a friend and they receive a framed insurance policy for $19.95, which covers (among other things) medical costs for psychiatric care and sarcasm coverage (which is limited to immediate family members). There is also the big $10m award for those who have been abducted, and of course the grand prize of $20m should the alien eat you.

His agency made the headlines in the US a few years ago when, amid much legal confusion, it was announced that there had been a payment of $10m to an abductee from New York who had successfully proven his alien experience to the agency.

''The guy was deadly serious about the abduction,'' says Mike. ''He showed us a wire-like implant that had been inserted into his body, which we passed on to a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who declared that it was 'not of this earth' and could possibly have been a recording device.''

He got the full amount, though it is being paid in instalments of $1 a year. ''He's got peace of mind now,'' insists Mike profoundly. About an ongoing case he tells me: ''the head of our claims division, Mr Maclean who has no credentials whatsoever, but so far has never made a mistake, is currently examining a Polaroid picture of the inside of a UFO.''

Other ways of proving the abduction include the signature of an on-board alien, but the agency will examine each claim on its own merit.

Is the St Lawrence Agency the only one of its kind? A few years ago it transpires, a British brokerage firm announced that it had been they who had been the originators of alien abduction insurance, claiming that they had since made a ''genuine'' payout too, at the time of the Heaven's Gate mass suicide.

Isn't there a danger though that he might be belittling the serious study of the UFO phenomenon? ''We've probably only had about five or six people objecting to it over the years,'' he claims and the public seems to be fascinated by it. This isn't surprising since Independence Day and popular shows such as the X-Files have whetted the appetite for aliens.

''I think there are aliens out there, the maths says so,'' declares Mike. And who would disagree with a man who pays more attention to the phenomenon than most people?

''We're probably talking about a different way of looking at things than we're accustomed to. There might be other dimensions involved, different to the conventional way in which we look at the universe.''

It's beyond him he concedes, but he is sure that something is going on, although exactly what it is he's not sure. Business will continue to rise this summer, as two asteroid-related big budget films come out - Deep Impact and Armaggedon.

Incidentally, as part of the asteroid insurance Mike will even offer you ''cirrhosis coverage for panic drinking due to near misses''.

Other insurance he's currently selling includes Reincarnation Insurance offered by his sister company Future Life Insurance. This is based on the premise that while you can't take it with you, you can leave it behind and collect it when you come back.

Mike claims that Shirley Maclaine is a policy holder as is Prince Charles. Policy holders who come back as a lower life form get $20m.

One other sideline currently being pursued by the St Lawrence Agency is the sale of used UFOs. Mike claims to be in an exclusive deal with the US government to sell UFO replicas, the most popular being the 1947 Silver Roswell. This is named after alien footage recently uncovered in a black and white film, allegedly dating from the infamous UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico.

n St Lawrence Agency's web site is http://www.ufo2001.com - if you're feeling brave.