WOMAN SUCCEEDS IN INSURANCE CLAIM

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 362, 24 May 1928, Page 16

WOMAN SUCCEEDS IN INSURANCE CLAIM

PREMIUM RETURNED BIG INTEREST IN CASE Press Association* NEW PLYMOUTH, Wednesday. Insurance agents from rival companies, some of them taking notes, were present in numbers in the Supreme Court to-day, when Agnes O. B. Hicks, wife of Robert Hicks, of Hawera, succeeded in her claim against the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Company for the return of a premium of £ll3 16s Bd, paid for a “probate” policy on her life. The agents for the society, Messrs. F. E. De Jough and H. J. Harnish, were submitted to a searching crossexamination both by counsel and his Honour. The case for plaintiff was heard last week and on the suggestion of Mr. Justice Reed that Hicks had misunderstood the position, counsel was granted an adjournment to ascertain whether the company would agree to cancel the proposal. No solution on this basis was reached, however, and the hearing of the defence was proceeded with to-day. It had been suggested by Mrs. Hicks that the agents had wrongly told her that the amount payable on the policy would cover death and succession duties on the estate of her husband, who was 72 years of age, thus protecting her children’s interest. When the document arrived it contained no clauses to this effect. The defence was a complete denial of the allegation. After evidence for the defence had been heard Mr. Justice Reed expressed the opinion that parties could not be said to be bound by a policy until they had seen and agreed to the conditions on the policy. There was no contract till plaintiff had seen the policy, read it and decided that she would accept the conditions. He suggested that the proposal and the polity might be construed as an offer and an acceptance respectively, but the terms were not known to the person concerned until the policy was actually delivered.