Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/98

 FEDERAL CONTROL OF INSURANCE CORPORATIONS the revocation, or the motive actuating it, is not a proper subject for judicial inquiry.1 In effect, the licensed foreign corporation must make its election between submitting all questions which it may desire to litigate to the state courts, and ceasing to do busi ness in the state. Some question as to the permanence of the doctrine of the Doyle case has been raised in later cases,2 but it is difficult to see how the conclusion reached in that case can be escaped without violat ing the principle giving the state the un qualified right of excluding foreign insur ance corporations. Under this doctrine the state may, there fore, make any requirement whatsoever of the licensed foreign insurance corporations, whose only alternatives are submission or withdrawal from the state and the conse quent loss of business that has been built up at the expense of much time and money. There can be no doubt that these regula tions are, for the most part, prescribed in a bona fide attempt to conserve the best in terests of the people of the several states, and some are undoubtedly well adapted to that end; as for instance, the laws requiring of insurance corporations stated reports, official examinations, the deposit of guar antee funds, and the appointment of some representative resident in the state to re ceive service of process. Others, however, are distinctly vexatious, and repugnant to sound business principles as applicable to insurance, such as the so-called anti-compact laws, and the valued policy laws. But even those state regulations that are not unsound in themselves are, for two reasons, most oppressive to the great in surance corporations under the existing order of things. In the first place, there are some fifty different states and territories, each with power to regulate in any manner 1 Doyle v. Continental Life Ins. Co., 94 U. S. 5352 Sec Cable v. United States Life Ins. Co., 191 U.S. 288, and cases cited at p. 307. See also discussion in Vance on Insurance, pp. 83, 84.

it sees fit, the conduct of insurance business within its borders. It is but natural that there should result the greatest diversity in the regulations adopted by the several states. The great insurance corporations, carrying on their business in all of these jurisdictions, are compelled at their peril to cause their methods of doing business in each to conform to all of its regulating statutes. A form of policy valid in one state is invalid in another; a given con tractual provision may be commended in one state and prohibited in another; one state requires notice of premiums due, while another does not. The confusion and expense resulting to the business of a cor poration seeking to comply with this great multitude of diversified regulations can easily be imagined. Likewise, many trouble some questions of conflicting laws arise to introduce an element of paralyzing uncer tainty into the business. Thus a policy may be written in New York, and by its terms made subject to the laws of New York, and delivered in Missouri to a resi dent of that state. Are the mutual rights and obligations of the parties to be deter mined by the special insurance regulations of New York or by those of Missouri? While in such a case the law of the con tract is manifestly that of New York, yet a Missouri court will apply such of the local laws as may have been enacted in pur suance of the public policy of the state. But public policy is an uncertain quantity, and it is difficult for even the best legal talent to foresee what view any particular court may adopt with reference to it. Such uncertainties are fruitful of expensive and vexatious litigation, and seriously in terfere with the efficient administration of the great insurance companies. Again, the cost to the insurance com panies of complying with all the require ments of the fifty different insurance de partments of as many states and territories is almost incredibly large. The whole amount annually paid by the insurance