138 Ga. 592 | Ga. | 1912
Mrs. Julia Eidson brought suit against the Eome Industrial Insurance Company, on a policy issued upon the life of her husband. The insured was required to pay a weekly premium of seventy cents. The policy also contained the following terms: “This policy is issued upon an application which omits the warranty usually contained in applications, and contains the entire agreement between the company and the insured and the holder and owner hereof. Its terms can not be changed, or its conditions varied, except by a written agreement signed by the president or secretary of the company. Therefore agents (which term includes superintendents and assistant superintendents) are not authorized and have no power to make, alter, or discharge contracts, waive forfeitures, or receive premiums on policies in arrears more than four weeks, or to receipt for the same in the receipt-book, and all such arrears given to an agent be at the risk of those who pay them, and shall not be credited upon the policy, whether entered in the receipt book or not. If this policy be assigned or otherwise parted with, or if any erasure or alteration be made therein, except by endorsement signed by the secretary, or if any premium shall not be paid when due, this policy shall be void. . . Should this policy become void in consequence of non-payment of premium, it may be revived, if not more than fifty-two premiums are due, upon payment of all arrears and the presentation of evidence satisfactory to the company of the sound health of the insured.”
It was conceded that the policy lapsed in February, 1908, for non-payment of premiums. But the plaintiff contended that it was renewed in August following, before the death of her husband, the insured. The jury found for the plaintiff. The defendant moved for a new trial, which was refused, and it excepted.
This ruling is not in conflict with those which hold that in the inception of the contract, in consummating the insurance and putting the policy in force, knowledge of the agent entrusted with doing so is attributable to the company, and waives a condition against its going into effect, arising from facts so known. Johnson v. Ætna Ins. Co., 123 Ga. 404 (51 S. E. 339, 107 Am. St. R. 92). In the latter case, the policy is being put in force. In the former, it is .in force, and its terms govern the future power of an agent to waive forfeiture.
Doubtless the company must act honestly and in good faith in passing upon the question. But if it does so, the test applied by the trial court was erroneous. Mackenzie v. Minis, 132 Ga. 323 (1, 2), 327, 329 (63 S. E. 900, 16 Ann. Cas. 723); Stewart v. Exum, 132 Ga. 422 (3), 425 (64 S. E. 471); Ronald v. Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association, 132 N. Y. 378, 382, 384; 2 Joyce, Ins. § 1276. A company may waive this requirement or estop itself by its conduct from setting up non-compliance with it. But that is a different thing from defining what is a compliance. In this case there was evidence that the policy had lapsed for some six months when the effort was made to revive it, that the insured had been in bad health, that he died in three or four weeks after the application for reinstatement, and that he had been rejected as a risk by another company to which he applied for insurance.
Judgment reversed.