Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York v. Breland

Citations

• 117 Miss. 479
• 78 So. 362

Syllabus

<p>1. Instjbance. Surrender value of automatically paid-up policy.</p> <p>Where by insured’s failure to pay the annual premium on a three thousand dollar life policy it automatically became, according to its provisions, a paid-up policy for six hundred dollars. In such case the policy-holder had no right upon the lapse of the old policy to take down in cash the amount of the reserve except in the manner specifically provided by the old contract, and having made no election to accept the real cash surrender value of the old policy within the time stipulated by the contract, when the policy became a paid-up policy for six hundred dollars, the insured no longer enjoyed the right to withdraw his reserve in cash or to compel the company to pay anything prior to his death.</p> <p>2. Pleading. Complaint. Sufficiency of general demurrer.</p> <p>If the complainant under any view has stated a case in his bill a general demurrer thereto should be overruled.</p> <p>3. Insurance. Action on policy. Pleading.</p> <p>In a suit in chancery, seeking to have the court decree that accrued dividends and surplus thereon, which were alleged to have been in fact earned and in the company’s possession, be applied to the payment of a premium, for nonpayment of which the company claimed a forfeiture of the policy, the bill was not defective in not expressly charging that any portion of the surplus or the dividends had in fact been set aside or placed to the credit of the policy, since it would be presumed that the company had complied with its policy contract tó declare dividends and ascertain and set apart surplus annually.</p> <p>■4. Insurance. Di-vidends. Application.</p> <p>Although a life insurance policy provides for forfeiture of the policy for nonpayment of annual premiums, where it also provides that dividends shall, at insured’s election, annually be either paid in cash or applied to the payment of premiums or applied to the purchase of paid-up additions or left to accumulate a furt