Year: 1875

Are You Insured.


The question is so familiar in form that
we want our readers TO understand at the
outset that it is not the one which they
have so often seen at the head of advertise
ments and exhortati0ns to go and get in
sured. We are not inquiring whether
they are in possession of policies purport-
ing to insure their lives or property. The
information we seek is more recondite
than that, and therefore good deal more
difficult to obtaia.


The oyer-eonfident reader may think
himself able to answer our question with
no more trouble than a reference to his
books or memoranda, but confidence with
out real knowledge is sometimes danger
Gus, as might be easily shown. Mrs.
Samuel F. Epes, for example, died recent
ly in Virginia, suppOsing herself insured
for the benefit of her husband to the ex-
tent of S., 900, the company having regu-
larly received her. premiums up to the
time of her death, without raising any
question to disturb her pleasant confidence
that she should leave a comfortable legacy
to her husband after her demise. She went
to her grave with this confidence un-
broken, so that it descended TO the surviv-
or, and subsisted up to the moment when
he applied to the company for
payment. Then it appeared that
the age of the deceased had
been incorrectly stated in the policy
to be thirty-one when it was actually near
er thirty-two, though it seems also to be
admitted that the mis-statement was unin-
territorial. The mistake was indeed ma
terial to the company, because the prem
iums had been lessened by it, but they did
not offer to make the insurance correspond
with the premium; on the contrary, the
plaintiff was forced to plead before the Cir
cult Court at Richmond that the company
ought to have made its objection during
the period when it was pocketing the
premiums, and that having failed to do
this it is now bound for the amount, not
withstanding the mistake. This our first
example goes only, however, tar enough
to warn persons supposed to be insured of
the risk they run of being obliged 10 liti-
gate their claims, for it will Startle the in
surance companies and delight their Gus
toners to hear that the Court charged dis
tinctly in support of the plaintiffs cOnten-
ton, and, so far as is authority reaches,
established the rule that the companies
cannot 90 on eating their cake to the very
last crumb and then refuse TO pay for it
because the shortening was lard instead of
butter.


1t appears, moreover, that the Court
came to this conclusion notwithstanding a
clause now commonly inserted in policies,
probably seldom noticed by the assured,
and unsuspected of its concealed power
even if it is, to the effect that all state
ments embraced in the policy are war
ranties on the part of the assured. The
intention and general effect of this clause
is to render the policy void if any repre-
sentation whatever is untrue, no matter
how immaterial it may be to the risk. For
! example, if the cause of the death of an
ancestor should be mistakenly stated to
have been diphtheria when IT was consump-
| ton, and the death of the assured was the
consequence of a railroad accident, rem
dering it utterly immaterial what the an
cestor died of, nevertheless the warranty
clause, if pleaded. as it has been in such
| cases, has been heretofore held to relieve
the company altogether of its obligation
| TO paw, In the present case the Court Off
| set the warranty with the estoppel, aud
authorized the jury to bring in verdict
for such an amount of insurance as the
premium paid for, which they accordingly
! did.


1t is by no means certain, however, that
the assured will always come out thus
happily, even at the cost of litigation. The
| questions of this sort continually arising
are indeed occasionally far more involved
| than the one under consideration and are
| of such importance that we think it not
unlikely the business of effecting insur-
ance may have to be transferred to the
LAWYERS, and in the end that the companies
may be obliged TO give up insistance upon
an intlexible form of contract, dictated by
| themselves.


In dealing thus far only with life insur-
ance, we have, however, deviated slightly
| from our original purpose, which was TO
direct attention to the - fine type" cOndi-
| tions of fire insurance policies, and that
not to make any complaint with regard to
them, but simply to urge the importance
of parties suppOsing themselves to be
| insured of making themselVe acquain ted
with these conditions. We were
reminded of this necessity by
recent case In which property was de-
stroyed and only part of the insurance
could be collected because in the other
policy it was stipulated that no other in
surance should be made without written
consent indorsed. Another case within
our acquaintance is that of an experienced
and generally trustworthy agent insuring
piece of property in two companies, and
neglecting this condition, so that one of
the policies was void from the beginning,
and both would have been if both had con-
tanned the condition. A little extra vigi-
lance on the part of the assured in this case
enabled him TO give satisfactory answer
to the question at the head of our article,
| but how many of our readers would have
answered it, relying merely upon the pay
ment of premium and possession OF the
policy, and not have found out until burnt
out that they were not insured, or if not a
sufferer by fire, that they had been paying
a premium for the mere possession of the
worthless, no matter how ornate, sigma
lures of an insurance president and secre-
tary?-N. 7. Journal of Commerce.