Chap. 43.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 4222 of the Code of Virginia,
as amended, relating to insurance companies, resident agents, countersignature
of insurance contracts, and discriminations by insurance companies and agents,
so as to prescribe how contracts issued by mutual companies may be counter-
signed, and to delete from the section certain language authorizing the Corpora-
tion Commission to issue refraining orders. [H 59]

Approved February 21, 1944

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia :

1. That section forty-two hundred twenty-two of the Code of Vir-
ginia, as amended, be amended and re-enacted, as follows:

Section 4222. Insurance companies not to do business in Virginia
except through resident agents or agencies ; countersignature ; exception ;
discriminations prohibited ; agents not to make agreements not expressed
in contracts; notice to companies to refrain from making discrimination ;
exceptions.—(a) Insurance companies, legally authorized to do business
in this State, except life, tithe and ocean marine insurance companies, and
except any mutual fire insurance company conducting business exclusively
in this State and on a strictly mutual plan which pays its losses wholly
from assessments upon its members and makes no division or distribution
of its earnings or profits among its members, shall not make contracts of
insurance or surety on persons or property herein, except through regu-
larly constituted and registered resident agents or agencies of such com-
panies. No contract of insurance or surety covering persons or property
in this State, except contracts of life, tithe and ocean marine insurance,
and except temporarv binders covering other forms of insurance, shall be
written, issued or delivered by any such authorized insurance company,
or any of its representatives, unless such contract is duly countersigned
in writing by a resident agent or agency of such company ; provided, how-
ever, that the countersignature of an insurance agency shall not be con-
sidered valid unless such countersignature be attested to in writing by
a regularly constituted and registered resident agent of such company.

No State agent, special agent, company representative, salaried officer,
manager or other salaried representative of any legally authorized insur-
ance company, except a mutual insurance company, shall countersign any
contract of insurance or surety, or any renewal thereof, covering person
or property in this State, except contracts of life, title and ocean marine
insurance. Except in the case of a mutual insurance company, no per-
son shall concurrently hold license as a special agent, State agent, or com-
pany representative and as resident agent for the same company or for
different companies.

(b) No life insurance company doing business in this State shall
make any discrimination in favor of individuals of the same class or of
the same expectation of life, either in the amount of premium charged or
in any return of premium, dividends or other advantages. No policy of
life insurance shall be issued or delivered in this State if it shall purport
to be issued or to take effect, at an age lower than the actual age of the
applicant at the time of the original written application.

(c) No agent, agency or company representative of any insurance
company shall make any contract for insurance or surety or agreement as
to such contract other than that which is plainly expressed in the con-
tract issued. No insurance company or agent thereof shall pay, or allow
or offer to pay, or allow as an inducement to any person to have issued
any contract of insurance or surety, any rebate of premium, or any special
favor or advantage whatever in the dividends to accrue thereon, or any
inducement whatever not specified in the contract.

(d) A person who is authorized by any company to solicit insur-
ance or applications therefor shall in any controversy between the insured
or his beneficiary and the company be held to be the agent of the com-
pany which issued the insurance solicited or so applied for, anything in
the application or policy to the contrary notwithstanding.

(e) Nothing in this chapter shall be so construed as to forbid a com-
pany transacting industrial insurance on a weekly payment plan with
weekly collections of premiums at the homes of the insured, from return-
ing to policyholders who have made premium payments directly to the
company at its home office or district offices, the savings which the com-
pany effects through such direct payment, or to forbid a life insurance
company from allowing its bona fide employees to receive a commission
on the premiums paid by them on policies on their own lives.

({) This section shall not apply to railroad companies and other
common carriers engaged in interstate commerce.