Reply
Thu 3 Oct, 2002 06:08 pm
A
Charlotte, North Carolina man, having purchased a case of rare, very expensive cigars, insured them against ..."Get this" ...
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 since
the man held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable, and also guaranteed that it
would insure the cigars against fire, without defining what it considered to be "unacceptable fire," it 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 lost in "the fires."
BUT WHAT COMES
AROUND...
After the man cashed his check, however, the insurance company had him arrested ... On 24 counts of arson!!
With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used as evidence against him, the man was convicted
of intentionally burning the rare cigars. He was sentenced to 24 consecutive one year terms!!
I suppose there's
justice in there somewhere...This is a true story from the "Legal Times".
---
End joke. I'm not sure if it's
true or an urban legend but it's funny.
Don't care if it's
true or not.....what comes around, goes around.
That is the truth.
I've seen this old
chestnut several times. It's a fake, see
www.snopes.com and/or
www.urbanlegends.com
I suspected that (20
consecutive 1 year sentences for that!!??) but didn't feel like researching it.
It's a good one though!
fake or not, it's the
truth
the specific example may not be true, but it's based on the basic principles of insurance.
it's been used in
property insurance texts for at least 20 years. i suspect it was developed as an example - all the basics in it are correct,
and i've seen very similar real claims go through a similar process here - the story is a bit of shortcut to reminding
property adjusters how some of the policies work