Cigar Insurance....
This is supposedly true
A Charlotte, North Carolina
man, having purchased a box of 24 rare and
very expensive cigars,
insured them against... fire. Within a month,
having smoked his entire stockpile
of fabulous cigars, and having yet
to make a single premium payment
on the policy, the man filed a claim
against the insurance
company.
In his claim, the man stated
that he had lost the cigars in "a series
of small fires." The
insurance company refused to pay, citing the
obvious reason: that
the man had consumed the cigars in a normal
fashion. The man
sued, and won.
In delivering his ruling,
the judge stated that the man held a policy
from the company in which
it was warranted that the cigars were
insurable. The
company, in the policy, had also guaranteed that it
would insure the cigars
against fire, without defining what it
considered to be "unacceptable
fire," and so, the company was
obligated to compensate
the insured for his loss. Rather than endure a
lengthy and costly appeal process,
the insurance company accepted the
judge's ruling and paid
the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he had
lost in "the fires."
However, shortly after the
man cashed his check, the insurance company
had him arrested on 24
counts of arson. With his own insurance claim
and testimony from the
previous case used as evidence against him, the
man was convicted of
intentionally burning the rare cigars and
sentenced to 24 consecutive
one year prison terms.
