13 F. Cas. 12 | D. Mass. | 1855
Petition for the allowance of a claim for a return premium. The Derry Mills held three policies issued by the Independence Insurance Company, each for one year. They surrendered the policies during the year and before thebankraptcy of the company. The policies contained a stipulation that the insured might surrender them at any time, and that thereupon the company should retain the customary short time rates of premium for each month entered upon before the surrender. It was proved that a tariff of premiums known as short time rates was in general use in Boston, which fixed the amount to be paid for any time short of a year at a certain proportion of the yearly premium, For instance, the charge for one month was twenty per cent of a yearly premium, for two months thirty per cent, and so on up to eleven months, which was ninety-five per cent. Two of these policies had been for eight months and twelve days, and the third for five months and eleven days before they were surrendered. The insured had proved a claim for a return premium reckoned on a basis of simple proportion of time, charging themselves with so much premium as the time their policies had run bore to the whole year.
The question now was whether this claim should stand in full or be diminished. The judge held that the meaning of the stipnlation was that if the insured surrendered his
