Covenant Mutual Benefit Ass'n v. Spies

Citations

• 114 Ill. 463
• 2 N.E. 482

Syllabus

<p>1. ' Life insurance—mutual benefit association—tender of annual and special assessments—-notice. The certificate of membership in a mutual benefit association required the holder to pay an annual assessment of three dollars on or before a certain day in each year, and in and by which the-member agreed to pay, on the death of every member, an assessment, never to exceed one dollar and twenty cents, and provided- further, that if the said annual and special assessments, etc., should not be received by the association within thirty days from date of the notice, the certificate should be null and void: Held, in the absence of a notice, no tender of the amount of such assessments was necessary in order to prevent a forfeiture of membership. Under such certificate, the holder of the certificate would be entitled to notice of the annual assessment before he could be in default for its non-payment.</p> <p>2. Same—proof of death before suit brought—waiver in respect thereto. In a suit upon a certificate of membership providing for the payment of a given sum to the widow and heirs of the member upon his death, the association issuing the same may waive proof of the death before suit brought.</p> <p>3. So where a by-law of a mutual benefit association provided that upon receipt of notice of the death of a member the secretary should immediately forward to the representatives of the deceased the proper blanks, and full instructions how to make proofs of death, and the association, upon notice of the death of a member, with a request to send the blanks and instructions as to the required proof, failed to send the same, on the claim that the deceased had forfeited his rights and his certificate had been cancelled, and refused payment of the sum named therein on that ground alone, it was held, that this was a waiver of the preliminary proof of death.</p> <p>4. Same—by-laws of the association, as entering into the contract of insurance. The by-laws of an association for mutual b