Court Opinion

ID: 9574665
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:06:54.660146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:48.233442
License: Public Domain

*333Felton, C. J.,
dissenting. I agree with the majority that the incontestable clause did not apply to the additional or supplemental insurance, for the reason that it never went into effect under the terms of the master policy.
I dissent from the judgment of reversal and from the ruling that the city was the agent of the insurance company. I do not believe that Code § 56-501 encompasses political subdivisions which have no authority or power to become or act as insurance agents. The sole purpose of that section is to prohibit insurance companies from escaping the legal consequences of their legal obligations and responsibilities by the subterfuge of accepting the benefits of persons who are not regularly appointed agents, but who, under the law, could be. It is clear to me that the act of 1950 (Ga. L. 1950, pp. 355, 356) had for its object and purpose to make the agencies therein enumerated the agent of employees to do the acts therein authorized, among which is to contract with insurance companies to procure insurance for employees. Numerically, the decisions of this court predominate in holding that in group-policy employee-insurance contracts, the employer is the agent for the employee. Since the oldest decisions are to the contrary and no request to review them has been made, the question is that, whatever the law is generally, under Code § 56-2301 and under the facts of this case, the city was the agent of the employee. Since the insurance company did not have notice that it was receiving the deceased’s premiums except through the knowledge of the city, it was not estopped to contend that it was not indebted in the amount of the additional insurance.