IDAHO LIFE INSURANCE CONTENTION.

Boise Statesman: Because practically all of the life insurance companies transacting business in the state, some 10 or 12 in number, have threatened to withdraw from the Idaho field and confine their operations to other states on their business at what they consider a fair profit, the pending case of the Continental Life Insurance and Investment company against I. C. Hattabaugh, as insurance commissioner, which will be tried in the supreme court some time in December is of vital importance.
The case is what is known as an agreed case or friendly suit from the fact that nearly all the life insurance companies in the state are indirectly regarded as plaintiffs and the action is brought to test the validity of the law.
The particular statute, or portion of the law, to which the insurance companies object is that passed at the 1911 session of the legislature which requires that life insurance companies shall loan money on policies at an interest rate of 5 per cent. This is fixed as the maximum.
The life insurance companies operating in the state, with the exception of a local corporation, oppose this provision upon the ground that they have heretofore been authorized to make loans at 6 per cent in this and other states. This objection appears well founded when it is taken into consideration that in many other states there exists a law which provides that a life insurance company shall not make loans on its policies in foreign states at a lesser rate of percentage than is fixed by law in the home state.
How It Works at Home.
Objectionable features of the workings of these two provisions of law are easily understood. Take for instance a Wisconsin company which operates in its home state under a law which fixes the maximum rate of interest to be charged as percentage at 6 per cent and provides that the company shall not accept loans on its policies unless the rate charged on the policies issued in Wisconsin shall be lowered accordingly. The resultant loss is apparent.
The insurance companies, for the most part, do not object to the Idaho law for the loss of Idaho business it entails, particularly, but cite the fact that through the peculiar workings of the laws of the different states their business in all the commonwealths is seriously affected. In the face of such losses as a continuation of the business in Idaho would incur under the present law they declare that they will withdraw from the Gem state completely rather than jeopardize their business and commercial prestige in other states for the proportionately small business to be had from Idaho.
How They Get the Worst of It.
It is also asserted by the insurance companies that the Idaho statute is unconstitutional because of the fact that it limits the life insurance to 5 per cent interest on its policies while individuals and corporations may secure as high as 12 per cent, according to commercial conditions for loans, and it is in the path of such loans that the Idaho law is characterized as a costly and detrimental barrier.
The case was set for October 23 and was to have been argued before the northern division of the supreme court at Lewiston, but it was announced yesterday that the attorneys for the state, O. M. Van Duyn, assistant attorney general; Frank Martin and B. F. Neal, would be unprepared to argue the case at that time and a postponement of the argument and a change from Lewiston to Boise was authorized. This argument will be heard in the local supreme court during the full term, sometime in December.
This story was published in the Oct. 21, 1911, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.