Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/93603/national-union-fire-ins-co-vs-wanberg
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 04:19:12+00:00

Document:
Appellant National Union Fire Ins. Co.
1. The law of North Dakota (Comp.Laws 1913, § 4902), providing that every insurance company engaged in the business of insuring against loss by hail in that state shall be bound, and the insurance shall take effect, from and after twenty-four hours from the taking of an application therefor by a local agent of the company, and requiring such a company, if it would decline the insurance upon receipt of the application, forthwith to notify the applicant and the agent by telegram, does not deprive such companies of their liberty of contract, and so of their property, without due process of law, or deny them the equal protection of the laws. P. 260 U. S. 73 .
2. The public interest arising from sudden and localized losses of crops inflicted by hail in North Dakota, and the high rate of insurance for such risks, as well as other distinctions, justify special legislative treatment of this kind of insurance. P. 260 U. S. 74 .
3. The fact that the time requirements of the statute may bear more heavily upon foreign than upon local insurance companies is a circumstance incident to the conduct of business in the state of which a foreign company cannot complain. P. 260 U. S. 75 .
4. The statute does not force the company to contract, since it does not compel acceptance of applications or deny the right to require prepayment of premium, or the right to cancel insurance in the usual way; the time allowed for rejecting applications, though short, is not unreasonable under the circumstances, nor is the company left without means of distributing its risks in locality so as to avoid disastrous losses from particular storms. P. 260 U. S. 76 .
5 The statute being valid, an applicant's agreement that his application shall not take effect until received and accepted at the company's agency is void, and does not bind him. P. 260 U. S. 77 .
in such insurance. There is no discrimination, and no denial of the equal protection of the laws. The fact that the time requirements of the statute may bear more heavily on foreign companies whose principal offices may be far removed than upon those whose headquarters are within the state is a circumstance necessarily incident to their conduct of business in another state of which they cannot complain. They cannot expect the laws of the state to be bent to accommodate them as a matter of strict legal right, however wise it may be for a legislature to give weight to such a consideration in securing the use of foreign capital for its people. Moreover, as the business of such insurance companies is purely intrastate, New York Life Insurance Co. v. Deer Lodge County, 231 U. S. 495 , the state has power to require them to accept conditions different from those imposed on domestic corporations, Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168; Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648 , and cases cited, though this is not, of course, unlimited. Terral v. Burke Construction Co., 257 U. S. 529 , 257 U. S. 532 -533.
It is pointed out on behalf of the company that the very application which the defendant in error signed contained an express consent that the policy should not take effect until the company's agency at Waseca, Minnesota, should have an opportunity to examine it and should accept it. It is clear that, if the statute is valid, such a consent is void because it defeats the very object of the statute. This is settled by Whitfield v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 205 U. S. 489 , and Orient Insurance Co. v. Daggs, 172 U. S. 557 , already cited.

References: § 4902
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