UK Cigar Scene Magazine October Issue 10 | Page 30

Cigar Insurance - Are Your Cigars Covered?
Have you ever really sat down to calculate what your cigar collection is worth?
Do you know what is in your collection and what would happen in the event of a fire or a
burglary?
Unfortunately I was the subject of a burglary from
my ‘smoking shed’ in a previous house and I lost
a large humidor, around 100 cigars which, even
if I priced them at an average of £20 per stick
was around £2,000 worth of cigars. I also lost my
humidor and all of the technology contained in it.
I had no record of the specific cigars and I had no
real basis for a claim on my insurance policy.

I decided to talk to a serious, and anonymous
cigar smoker I know. I asked him how he handled
his insurance. He told me that he had been aware
of the dangers of a house fire from when he was
young. From his early days as a cigar lover he was
also aware of some of the other dangers to his
cigars; when he got beetle in his home humidor
and lost over 10 boxes of cigars.

This made me think about insurance and cigars
and I decided to ask some of my cigar loving
friends to answer as simple confidential online
poll about their cigar collections and their
insurance.

He told me that as he started to seriously build up
his collection he made certain that his cigars were
specified on his home policy.

The results are fascinating.
I received twenty responses revealing I have
friends with some huge collections of cigars. I
clearly need to spend much more time enjoying
cigars with my friends!
The values of individual collections ranged from
the hundreds of pounds up to around £100,000.

Ten collectors confirmed that they do not have
their cigars specified on their insurance (total
value of the cigars - £95,000)

He told me that when he started to specify his
cigars on his insurance policy it was worth
between £10,000 and £20,000. At that time it
was a relatively expensive part of his home policy
but as the value of his collection has risen to well
over £200,000 the proportion of the policy has
dropped. He did say that he hasn’t had to make
any claims yet so this may well be a contributing
factor.

Only two respondents confirmed that they have
included and specified their cigars on their home
insurance policies (total value of the collections £80,000)

His cigars are kept in a custom built humidor
and are very secure. His coverage ensures that his
collection is covered against all forms of damage
as well as fire and flood.

Of the twenty respondents, eight keep some form
of spreadsheets (some on remote cloud based
systems, some on home pc’s). Five have simple
records varying from memory to keeping store
receipts and nine confirmed they keep no records
at all.

He highlighted that the key part of ensuring your
cigars was finding the right insurance company
who understood cigars and the need to cover
them in the same way that you would valuable
collections of art of jewellery.

Total value of all of the twenty collections was
over £410,000.
Of these, eight collectors ‘think’ that their cigars
are insured on their home policy but weren’t sure.
(total value of cigars - £235,000).

Estimated value of the unrecorded cigars is over
£150,000

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He takes great care to log all of cigars and to
photograph his collection each year at the policy
renewal date and send these photographs to his
insurance company. He highlighted that with
cigar prices rising and his tendency to acquire
new cigars during the year he always overstates
the value of his cigars by 10 -20%. In the current
climate I would suggest this is very sensible
as replacing a major collection is going to be a
difficult and costly business.

In our November issue we will be talking to a
London based Insurance specialist who covers
high value collections of art and cigars. We will
also be exploring the best ways of recording your
cigar collections.