Smoking, cigars and cigarettes stories abound. The internet is full of strange stories. It’s almost as if the internet itself inspires some of the strange (bizarre) stories that circulate. The amazing thing is that just occasionally there is at least a grain of truth in these urban legends. A man really did insure his cigar collection, smoked the cigars and tried to collect on the policy. He didn’t collect but the incident was apparently the inspiration for the Cigar Arsonist story that made the rounds on the Internet.
The legend goes: A man had a collection of fine cigars. The cigars were of a particularly rare Cuban vintage and valued at more than $100 each. This (fictional) man took out an insurance policy against loss of the cigars by fire. He then smoked all of the cigars and filed a claim with the insurance company.
The insurance company refused to pay the claim to this man took them to court and the judge decided that the cigars had been lost to fire and ordered the insurance company to pay him $14,400.
*Note…a reasonable person could almost believe this story up to this point but now it gets really weird.
The insurance company, so the story goes, did pay the man for the loss of his cigars but then had him arrested for arson but they couldn’t hold him because he had taken out an insurance policy against the possibility of being kidnapped and held against his will.
The insurance company had to withdraw the arson charges but with the stipulation that they be allowed to refund the man’s premiums for insurance policies that he had taken out covering his bathtub for flooding, his Kleenex for damage from high winds and his fish for drowning.
The man took the money from his insurance settlement and purchased a lemming farm in Montana where he immediately took out an insurance policy protecting his investment if his lemmings committed suicide.
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