Court Opinion

ID: 9518193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:46:48.494459+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:44.049703
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(dissenting). In so many words the statute says that mailing notice of cancellation of an insurance policy is merely “prima facie proof of notice.” CLS 1961, § 500.3020, Stat Ann 1957 Rev § 24.13020. This means, as our Court recently held, that unless the notice is actually received it is not an effective notice of cancellation. Gooden v. Camden Fire Insurance Association (1968), 11 Mich App 695.*
In this case the notice of cancellation was mailed July 17, 1962, and by its terms became effective 12:01 a.m. July 28, 1962. Mrs. Seals did not receive actual notice until some time during July 28, 1962, *202i.e., after the notice of cancellation purportedly had already become effective.
Nothing short of actual receipt by the policyholder of the notice of cancellation can make it effective. Gooden v. Camden Fire Insurance Association, supra. The statute does not make delivery to the policyholder’s spouse or at his last address known to the company binding upon the policyholder himself.
And since actual receipt is required, it seems more reasonable to interpret the 10-day notice requirement to mean that 10 days’ actual notice is required. See Serves v. Eureka Casualty Company (1957) 103 Ohio App 268 (144 NE2d 120); Hartford Fire Insurance Company v. Tewes (1907), 132 Ill App 321. The purpose of the 10-day notice requirement is to allow the insured a reasonable period of time within which to replace the cancelled insurance, a purpose which is not achieved by an interpretation of the statute which permits cancellation of the policy to become effective without regard to whether there has been actual notice, let alone 10 days’ actual notice. A so-called “notice” that is not received is in reality no notice at all.
Since the statute requires 10 days’ notice and makes mailing of written notice only prima facie proof of notice, the only sensible interpretation of the statute is that the time the policyholder is given to replace cancelled insurance does not begin to run until he receives actual notice. Surely that time cannot, as the majority in this case hold, terminate before the policyholder receives the notice.

 A comparison of the legislation (CL 1929 § 12461) passed upon in Galkin v. Lincoln Mutual Casualty Company (1937), 279 Mich 327, in whieh the Michigan Supreme Court held that cancellation could not be effected by the insurer until notice thereof was received by the insured, with the amendment adopted by PA 1951, No 260, p 426, and the amendment adopted by PA 1953, No 214, p 315, leaves me with the impression that by the 1951 amendment it may have been sought to achieve substantially the result for whieh a majority of the panel today write, but that the superseding 1953 amendment was passed to foreclose that interpretation.