48.24.040 - Debtor groups. - Washington Statutes

Debtor groups.

The lives of a group of individuals may be insured under a policy issued to a creditor, who shall be deemed the policyholder, to insure debtors of the creditors, subject to the provisions of the insurance code relating to credit life insurance and credit accident and health insurance and to the following requirements:

     (1) The debtors eligible for insurance under the policy shall be all of the debtors of the creditor whose indebtedness is repayable in installments, or all of any class or classes thereof determined by conditions pertaining to the indebtedness or to the purchase giving rise to the indebtedness, except that nothing in this section shall preclude an insurer from excluding from the classes eligible for insurance classes of debtors determined by age. The policy may provide that the term "debtors" shall include the debtors of one or more subsidiary corporations, and the debtors of one or more affiliated corporations, proprietors or partnerships if the business of the policyholder and of such affiliated corporations, proprietors or partnerships is under common control through stock ownership, contract, or otherwise.

     (2) The premium for the policy shall be paid by the policyholder, either from the creditor's funds, or from charges collected from the insured debtors, or from both. A policy on which part or all of the premium is to be derived from the collection from the insured debtors of identifiable charges not required of uninsured debtors shall not include, in the class or classes of debtors eligible for insurance, debtors under obligations outstanding at its date of issue without evidence of individual insurability unless at least seventy-five percent of the then eligible debtors elect to pay the required charges. A policy on which no part of the premium is to be derived from the collection of such identifiable charges must insure all eligible debtors, or all except any as to whom evidence of individual insurability is not satisfactory to the insurer.

     (3) The policy may be issued only if the group of eligible debtors is then receiving new entrants at the rate of at least one hundred persons yearly, or may reasonably be expected to receive at least one hundred new entrants during the first policy year, and only if the policy reserves to the insurer the right to require evidence of individual insurability if less than seventy-five percent of the new entrants become insured.

     (4) Payment by the debtor insured under any such group life insurance contract of the premium charged the creditor by the insurer for such insurance pertaining to the debtor, shall not be deemed to constitute a charge upon a loan in violation of any usury law.

[1967 c 150 § 28; 1961 c 194 § 9; 1955 c 303 § 18; 1947 c 79 § .24.04; Rem. Supp. 1947 § 45.24.04.]