Too smart for his boots, he thought he could get away with the blue smoke, but when it cleared, the insurance company had the final say.
Life can present you with some pretty hard experiences and sometimes you need to grasp a Blue Moon Opportunity to change your life. There are some people though,
who are just too smart for their own good and try to generate opportunities where there aren't any.
A North Carolina man purchased a box of rare and very expensive cigars, and promptly insured them against fire. The temptation to light up just one of the rarities, sit back and enjoy its luxury, proved too much for him. He then proceeded to smoke his way through the entire box, within a few weeks. This of course, was without having bothered to pay even the first premium on the insurance policy.
Filing a claim with the insurance company, the man declared "My rare cigars have been lost through a series of small fires." A claim the insurance company, refused to pay up on, stating the man had consumed the cigars in a normally accepted manner. They however, had no proof of this, aside from the man's own confession.
The judge agreed the claim was frivolous, however the court acknowledged the man was holding a policy from the insurance company, which warranted the cigars as being insurable and covered against fire. The judge pointed out the insurance company had failed to specify what form of fire was unacceptable.
Apart from going through the costly process of fighting the court's decision, the insurance company was forced to accept the judge's ruling. The judge awarded the owner of the cigars $15,000, declaring the cigars lost through fire.
The insurance company appeared to graciously retire, until the man cashed the cheque. Believing he had thoroughly outsmarted the insurance company, through what seemed to be a once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity, the man proceeded with his plan to spend the money.
As soon as the cheque was presented at the bank, the insurance company lost no time in ordering the arrest of the man for twenty-four counts of arson. The man's testimony from the previous court case condemned him. He was convicted of deliberately burning his insured property. He was sentenced to one month per conviction, causing the man to spend a total of twenty-four months in jail, besides having to pay a $24,000 fine.
There is now a universal non acceptance of smoking. Could the guy in North Carolina have purchased the largest cigar in the world? Rolled by Castelar, at 45-feet long, it surpassed his 2000 35-foot world record.
It would have been something to really choke on. Would the guy from North Carolina have got more than one month's jail for smoking this one?
