Long v. West Coast Life Insurance

CURTIS, J. This is an action for declaratory relief brought by the plaintiffs against the defendant insurance company for the purpose of having a certain life insurance policy issued by the defendant insurance company to plaintiff, John J. Long, declared to be in full force and effect in so far as the death benefits that may hereafter accrue are concerned.

On March 29, 1920, plaintiff husband purchased from the defendant insurance company at a yearly premium of $174.75 a thirty-year endowment policy in the capital sum of $5,000. This policy provided for three alternative methods of payment : (1) In the event of the death of the insured prior to the expiration of 30 years, $5,000 to be payable to his beneficiary, Maude S. Long, his wife; (2) in the event the insured survived until March, 1950, the sum of $5,000 to be payable to him; and (3) in the event insured became totally and permanently disabled while the policy was in full force and effect, the payment to him of $50 a month for 100 months.

The conditions relative to the third alternative method of payment are contained in the following provision of the policy: “TOTAL AND PERMANENT DISABILITY. If the insured becomes totally and permanently disabled . . . prior to the attainment of sixty years, while this policy is in [21]full force and effect, the Company agrees, without further payment of premiums, to pay monthly to the insured while living, as an advance, installments for one hundred months, each of such installments to be 1 per cent of the amount otherwise payable under this policy on the death of the insured, the first of such advance payments to be made immediately following the receipt by the company of satisfactory proofs of such total and permanent disability. The total amount of monthly advance payments that may be made hereunder shall be deducted from the total amount otherwise due under this policy on the death of the insured; all subject, however, to the conditions hereinafter set out; to-wit:

“1. That payment of this benefit shall be in lieu of all other benefits and values under this policy.

“3. That immediately after the commencement of the Total and Permanent Disability full particulars thereof must be given in writing to the Company at its Home Office, together with the then address of the insured, and within 120 days after the commencement of the total and permanent disability, there must be given the Company at its Home Office satisfactory proof of total and permanent disability, and annually thereafter similar proofs must be given, if required by the Company, of the continuance of the total and permanent disability.