Page. NOMINATION. Charlotte Bold and the Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society.— A nomination lapses on the death of the nominee before the nominator.-Caddick v Highton, [1901] 2 Ch. 476 n., not followed. PAYMENT ON DEATH. Thomas Worrall and the Prudential Assurance Company, Limited.— Payment on death.-Payment in good faith of amount assured to relation by blood of assured in accordance with conditions of policy. Assurers protected against subsequent claim by assured's administrator ... ... ... Royal London Mutual Insurance Society, Limited, and Edward Shields.-Payment on death.-Child.-Non-production of statutory certificate owing to lapse of time.-Award to parent without certificate ... 106 109 ... 110 POLICY. Britannic Assurance Company, Limited, and Ann Jane Banks.— Policy. Joint or individual assurance.-Incorporation of proposal in policy.-Construction of proposal by policy.-Variation of policy by reference to proposal PROPOSAL. ... 111 ... ... ... Samuel Frederick Brooks and the Royal London Mutual Insurance ... ... SURRENDER VALUE. assured Application of Alice Wills for the surrender value of a policy in the the year ended December 31st, 1924. Presented pursuant to the Industrial Assurance Act, 1923 (13 & 14 Geo. 5, cap. 8), Section 44. PREFACE. The Industrial Assurance Act, which was read a second time in the House of Lords on St. Valentine's Day, went into Committee of the House of Commons on May Day and became law on the same day as the Reform Bill of 1832, ought to be a more attractive piece of work than it is; but such are the complications of the subject matter that it could not have been simplified further. Since it was passed a certain number of minor defects have become apparent, but nothing calling for immediate legislation except the matter that was set right by the Friendly Societies Act, 1924. A good many amateur improvements, however, have already been suggested. The most drastic is perhaps the following: A BILL TO AMEND THE INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE WEEKLY "1. No person shall be rejected on account of any illness. or disease. 66 2. All persons who have ceased to pay premiums shall have the amount they have paid in premiums; shall have the amount of 75 per cent. paid out to their representatives on the assured person's death-the other 25 per cent. shall be deducted by the society for expenses. "3. No pressure shall be allowed to be brought by any representative of any Assurance Society to the assured person to have their policies increase payment. "4. No premium shall be received by the Assurance. Society after 20 years' payments have been made. A policy for 75 per cent. of the total amount paid inclusive of compound interest shall be paid out. 5. Any assured person lapsed who is buried by the Board of Guardians or Parochial Authorities such sum shall be recovered from the Assured Societies." The Act commenced generally on January 1st, 1924, but the office and functions of the Industrial Assurance Commissioner came into being on June 7th, 1923, the date of the passing of the Act, and four sections, Sections 17, 28, 30 and 35, commenced on the same date. The Commissioner, therefore, had from that 53067 A 3 date not only power to take the steps necessary to enable the Act to come into full force on January 1st, 1924, but also power to inspect companies and societies, to deal with policies which had been protected by the Courts (Emergency Powers) Act, 1914, and war bond policies, and to obtain lists of the secretary and committeemen of collecting societies. These duties were very onerous and sufficient fully to occupy the Commissioner's time and that of his Department during the last seven months of 1923, largely owing to the fact that the new definition of collecting society brought under the Act a large number of societies, both registered and unregistered, which had hitherto been outside the law relating to collecting societies, and all these had to be dealt with individually. I did not, however, think that the Act required me to make a separate Report for 1923, when the bulk of it was not in operation. This, then, is my first Report under the Act. As it deals with one statute only, I propose to take the Act section by section and when anything of interest has been done under a section to state what and why. In case anyone feels disappointed that I have not discussed certain matters, I had better, perhaps, explain that, while I cannot guarantee that there have been no inadvertent omissions, any omissions there may be are mainly due to my consciousness that I may have to deal with the matters omitted judicially or semi-judicially, and therefore abstain from premature comment upon them. Quod felix faustumque sit. G. STUART ROBERTSON, Industrial Assurance Commissioner. May 25, 1925 REPORT. WHO MAY CARRY ON INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE BUSINESS AND WHAT IT IS. Section 1. The effect of sub-section (1) of this section is to prohibit the carrying on of industrial assurance business by any body which is not registered in some way or other. Hitherto there have been a number of unregistered collecting societies and, for all I know, some of these may still be carrying on business. If they are, they are warned that in so doing they and every one of their officers are rendering themselves liable to a penalty of £50 per day and to have all their policies treated as illegal policies (Section 39 (4)). It must be clearly understood that a society is now no less a collecting society because it collects less than 10 miles from the office. I have endeavoured to track down as many as I could, and, in some cases, it appeared that some of these unregistered bodies which were supposed to be collecting societies were not in fact collecting societies, for some reason which took them outside subsection (2) of the present section. But it is not primarily my duty to find them. It is their duty to bring their existence to my knowledge. If any society has any doubt whether it comes within the Act or not, it should write to this Office. One or two singular cases came up in the course of my enquiries. In one instance a society only collected subscriptions when it thought its members could afford to pay, and in another a society only collected in winter and not in summer, or in summer and not in winter. A complete list of companies and societies which are at present entitled to carry on the business of industrial assurance in this country will be found in Appendix I, page 26. It would hardly have been expected that any new companies would have been registered at the present stage, but in fact there have been two: the Catholic Life and General Assurance Company, Limited, and the Nation Life and General Assurance Company, Limited. These companies represent existing concerns in the Irish Free State which had business in Great Britain or Northern Ireland at the commencement of the Industrial Assurance Act. By the law of Northern Ireland, a deposit in Great Britain entitles an office to carry on industrial assurance business in Northern Ireland, and so it is natural that these Free State offices should prefer to make their deposit here and so include Great Britain as well as Northern Ireland in their sphere of action. There may also be other reasons which move them in this matter. The change in the definition of "industrial assurance business" (see sub-section (2)) has led to the exclusion from the list of collecting societies of several societies, which were collecting societies under the old Act-those cases, for instance, where the 53067 A 4 contributions were paid to unregistered agencies and were not collected from house to house. On the other hand, many friendly societies and branches found themselves caught in the meshes from which they had formerly escaped owing to their collections being limited to a radius of 10 miles. Some of these latter cases were met by an adjustment which brought them within the exception provided by Section 1 (2) (a). The proviso contained in Section 1 (2) (b) was originally inserted to meet the case of one particular company, but it was found to cover also two other companies. In all three cases the company in question was obviously not one to which the Act was appropriate. It also, however, had the result of excluding from the Act a considerable number of societies, which would have been collecting societies had they collected at intervals of less than one calendar month. This result was, perhaps, not foreseen when the Bill was drafted, but, as far as I am aware, there is nothing in the operations of the excluded societies which calls very vehemently for the application of the Act. In dealing with applications for a certificate under Section. 1 (2) (d) I had the advantage of the assistance of the Government Actuary, and decided that the two matters to which attention must be directed were the length of notice before forfeiture and the terms on which paid-up policies and surrender values were granted. The following assurances have been dealt with under the sub-section : M.1. Monthly Section. British Legal Life Assurance (1) Form No. 30, monthly L. Company, Ltd. or E.A.-O.B. Form No. 30, monthly L. or E.A.-O.B. Joint Life. Royal London Mutual Insur- (1) Ordinary Branch. ance Society, Ltd. Whole Life Assurance (monthly premiums). (2) Ordinary Branch. Endow ment Assurance (monthly premiums). (3) Ordinary Branch. Double Endowment Assurance (monthly premiums) |