Talbot v. Country Life Insurance

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• an application for insurance, being a mere offer or proposal for a contract of insurance, is not a contract; the existence of a contract, absent a binder, depends upon the insurer's acceptance of the application
• “the agent or company owes an applicant for insurance what amounts to a legal obligation to act with reasonable promptness on the application, either by providing the desirable coverage or by notifying the applicant of the rejection of the risk”
• “where an application was made for a life policy with a beneficiary being designated to receive the proceeds, a cause of action lodges in such beneficiary, upon the applicant’s death, for unreasonable delay on the part of the insurer, in accepting or rejecting such application”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).