Penn Mutual Life Insurance v. Gordon

Citations

• 104 Miss. 270
• 61 So. 311

Syllabus

<p>1. Insurance. Contracts. Construction. Benefits and conditions.</p> <p>The controlling purpose in the construction of all contracts should be to find the intention of the parties. To this end it is necessary to inspect the whole instrument. It will not do to limit the consideration to one part of a writing, isolated from the other parts. The true intention can only be gathered from all of the words, all of the clauses, and all that may be shown by the entire paper.</p> <p>2. Same.</p> <p>Where the instrument evidencing the contract of insurance is upon a double sheet, consisting of four pages, and upon the first page is the writing by the insurance company, duly signed and attested by its officers, a clause, following such signature, making the policy incontestable after one year, and limiting the insurance liability to the amount of the premium paid in ease of suicide within one year, relates to “benefits and conditions,” and is made a part of the policy by a prior reference clause, written over the signatures, reciting that the “extended insurance, paid-up insurance, and cash surrender value privileges, benefits, and conditions, stated on the second and fourth pages hereof form a part of this policy” as much so as though recited over the signatures affixed.</p> <p>3. Same.</p> <p>The clause in question is a benefit to the insured because of its provision of incontestability and is a condition by reason of limiting the liability of the company to the amount of the premium paid, when the insured takes his own life, within one year from the date of the policy.</p>