Police Beneficiary Ass'n v. Ætna Life Ins.

Citations

• 69 Pa. Super. 460
• 1918 Pa. Super. LEXIS 419

Syllabus

<p>Insurance — Life insurance — Group policy — Beneficial associations — Presumption as to death.</p> <p>Where a beneficial association takes out a group policy, in a life insurance company on October 22, 1914, to reinsure its members, and on February 4, 1916, the wife of one of the members of the association brings suit against the association and recovers death benefits on proof that the last news of her husband was by a letter from him to his son dated August 18, 1906, raising a presumption of death after seven years, and thereafter the association sues the insurance company on the group policy to recover the death benefits it was compelled to pay the widow, the defendant is entitled to a judgment on the ground that the evidence offered in the case and the record of the previous suit showed that the member was dead on October 22,1914, when the group policy was taken out, and that consequently there could be no reinsurance of his-life.</p> <p>In such a case testimony offered by the widow at the trial of the suit against the insurance company to the effect that the last news heard from her husband was in December, 1907, is immaterial, inasmuch as proof of the husband being alive on October 22, 1914, established that he could not be presumptively dead until October • 22, 1921, and the suit was premature.</p>