POLICY DIFFERS FROM PROPOSAL.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 May 1928, Page 3

POLICY DIFFERS FROM PROPOSAL.

WOMAN WINS ACTION AGAINST INSURANCE CO

NEW PLYMOUTH, Last Night

Insurance agents from rival companies, sonic of them taking notes, were present tin fair numbers in the Supreme Court to-day when Agnes (). B. Hicks, wife of Robert Hicks, of Hawera, sue-, cccded in a claim against the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Company for the return of a premium of £ll3 16s Sd paid for a * ‘probate ” policy on her life.

The agents for the Society, Alcssrs. E. Dejongh and H. J. Harnish, were submitted to a searching cross-exam-ination, both by counsel and by His Honour.

The case for plaintiff was heard last week and on the suggestion of Mr. Justice Reed that Mrs. Hicks had misum derstood 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 hj’’ 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 interests. When the document arrived it contained no clauses to tliis effect.

The defence was a complete denial 6f the allegations. After evidence for the defence had been heard Mr. Justice Rood 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 the plaintiff had seen the policy, read it and decided she would accept the conditions.

Ho suggested that the proposal and the policy might be construed as an offer and an acceptance respectively, the terms of which were not known to the person concerned until the policy was delivered.