Continental Insurance Co. v. Brown

• Decision Date: 08 October 1926
• Citation: 216 Ky. 19
• Parties: Continental Insurance Company v. Brown.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 19

216 Ky. 19

Continental Insurance Company v. Brown.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Decided October 8, 1926.

1. Insurance. — Note for insurance premiums, given when policy was issued, held part of transaction, and provision therein for suspension of insurance on failure to promptly pay any premium installment is binding, though not in policy.

2. Pleading — Judgment for Plaintiff on Pleadings in Action on Tornado Insurance Policy Held Improperly Granted, in View of Provision in Note for Suspended Insurance on Nonpayment of Premium Installment. — Where tornado insurance policy contained no provision for suspended insurance on nonpayment of installment of premium, held, in action for loss occurring after due date of unpaid premium installment, where pleadings disclosed that premium note contained provision for suspended insurance on non-payment of premium installment, judgment for plaintiff on pleadings was improperly granted.

Appeal from Livingston Circuit Court.

JOS. S. LAURENT, BRUCE, BULLITT, GORDON & LAURENT and C.H. WILSON for appellant.

FERGUSON & WELLS for appellee.

OPINION OF THE COURT BY TURNER, COMMISSIONER.

Appeal granted and judgment reversed.

In October, 1922, appellant issued to appellee a policy of tornado insurance on his barn and certain personal property therein for a period of five years. The premium was to be paid in instalments, and the first instalment was paid at the time the policy was issued, and each yearly instalment was thereafter to be paid on the first of November.

At the time of the tornado loss on the first of September, 1925, the yearly instalment due the first of November, 1924, had not been paid.

The tornado policy contained no provision suspending the insurance upon the failure to promptly pay the instalments; but on the same day the tornado policy was issued appellant also issued to appellee a fire insurance policy on the same barn and the same personal property for the same length of time, and an instalment note was given by appellee for the full amount of the premiums payable on both policies for the succeeding four years. The tornado policy refers to

"Extra premiums specified in fire policy No. 582,873, if paid when due and in payment when due of instalment on an instalment note."

In this action by appellee on the tornado policy for his loss the defendant, after denying the amount of the loss in the first paragraph, alleges in the second paragraph that the policy sued on was issued at the same time that a fire policy was issued to appellee by appellant upon the same property, and that each policy refers to the other and the two policies form a single contract of insurance, and therefore the two should be construed together and in connection with each other. It is then alleged that the two policies were issued in...