Sermon Illustrations | Consequences

Anecdotes

A Charlotte, North Carolina, man bought a case of rare, very expensive cigars and then insured them against … fire. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile and having yet to make a single premium payment on the policy, he filed a claim against the insurance company, stating he had lost the cigars in ‘a series of small fires’. The insurance company refused to pay but the man sued – and won. The judge stated that since the man held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable, without defining what it considered to be ‘unacceptable fire’ it was obligated to compensate the insured for his loss. Rather than undergo a long and costly appeal, the insurance company accepted the judge’s ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he lost in ‘the fires’. When the smoker cashed his cheque, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of arson. With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the man was convicted of intentionally burning the rare cigars and sentenced to 24 consecutive one-year terms.