Chap. 153.—An ACT to amend the Code of Virginia by adding to Chapter 168
thereof a new section numbered 4226-a, providing that insurance agents shall
collect full premiums and receive full commissions, exceptions thereto and
prohibiting insurance agents from countersigning insurance policies in blank.

[S B 155}
Approved March 12, 1936

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That the
Code of Virginia be amended by adding to chapter one hundred and
sixty-eight thereof, a new section to be numbered forty-two hundred
and twenty-six-a, which new section shall read as follows:

Section 4226-a. Agents to Collect Full Premiums and Receive Full
Commissions; Exceptions Thereto; Not to Sign Blank Policies;
Penalty; Exceptions—No regularly constituted and registered agent
for any insurance company, whose residence and principal place of
business is in this State, may write, countersign, issue or deliver any
policy of insurance upon persons or property in this State unless he
shall collect at the time the policy is written, issued or delivered, or
within a reasonable time thereafter, the full premium on such policy,
and the agent shall be entitled to and shall receive the usual and cus-
tomary commissions allowed on such policies, provided, that a regu-
larly constituted and registered agent may write policies at the request
only of such other registered agents and licensed brokers who may be
authorized by law to broker such business or policies, and on exchange
of business between resident agents in Virginia and licensed non-
resident agents or brokers in other states the resident agent in Virginia
may allow or pay to such licensed non-resident agents or brokers,
commissions, in the same degree and proportion as is allowed Vir-
ginia agents, either by custom, or the requirement of the statute law
of the State in which the licensed non-resident agent resides, on the
policies so written.

No regularly constituted and registered agent for any insurance
company shall sign or countersign any blank contract or policy of
insurance; nor may such agent allow or pay to any agent, not regu-
larly commissioned and registered, or to any unlicensed resident or non-
resident broker any portion of any commission which he receives or
is entitled to receive.

Any agent violating any of the provisions of this section, upon
conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than ten dollars nor more
than five hundred dollars, and his certificate or certificates of registra-
tion shall be suspended or revoked.

This section shall not apply to life insurance companies (except the
casualty branches of such companies), nor to mutual fire insurance
companies operating wholly within the borders of this State, nor to
mutual companies which do not pay commissions, nor to policies or
contracts of ocean marine insurance, nor to railroad companies and
other common carriers engaged in interstate commerce.