Court Opinion

ID: 9570821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:26:43.372683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:28.853004
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Presiding Judge,
concurring.
I concur with the opinion of Judge Pannell and with the judgment. Additionally, I would call attention to the fact that although the policy was in possession of the bank, Mr. Price had been free to go there and ascertain the coverage at any time, but did not do so. In Hart v. Waldo, 117 Ga. 590 (43 SE 998), Mr. Justice Candler asserted that "The holder of an insurance policy is chargeable with knowledge of its conditions; and this is none the less true where he voluntarily parts with actual possession of the policy by pledging it as security for a loan.” See also Equitable Life Assur. Soc. of the U. S. v. Adams, 56 Ga. App. 5 (2) (192 SE 90). In Security Life Ins. &c. Co. v. Gober, 50 Ga. 404, 412 (2) where the insured purchased a life insurance policy, gave a note for the first premium and the agent was holding possession of the policy until the note should be paid, it was held: "That Gober did not know the precise terms of the policy, if he did not, was his own fault, as he could have known had he applied to the agent for the same.” See also Massey v. *450Cotton States Life Ins. Co., 70 Ga. 794; Thomson v. Southern Mut. Ins. Co., 90 Ga. 78 (1) (15 SE 652).
There is no ambiguity in the policy. It simply describes a house that the insured did not own as the property insured. While the insurer knew nothing as to ownership of the house beyond the representations in the application, no one should have known better what he owned than the insured, and if he had examined the policy he would have discovered that there was no coverage on any house that he owned. A very similar situation on the facts is found in Stovall v. New York Underwriters Ins. Co., 182 Ga. 163 (185 SE 241), where the insured sought a reformation of the policy, which, like that here, was a renewal policy but covering a different house from that which had been originally insured.