INSURANCE-GRATUITOUS ASSIGNMENT OF LIFE POLICY WHERE RIGHT TO CHANGE BENEFICIARY IS RESERVED

Defendant issued a life insurance policy to deceased, naming plaintiff, then insured's wife, as beneficiary. The policy reserved to the insured the right at any time to change the beneficiary without the knowledge or consent of the latter, and it further provided that no assignment should affect the rights of insurer until due notice was given to defendant. Sometime later, plaintiff divorced insured, who had indicated by personal conversation and correspondence with his sister the intervener, that he intended that the sister should receive the proceeds of the insurance. In one letter the insured referred to the policy and said, "The thing is yours to do with as you see fit." Though on several occasions he had stated that he intended to notify the defendant of a change of beneficiary this was never done.

The insured also retained possession of the policy until his death. In plaintiff's suit on the policy, the insured's sister intervened, asserting a gratuitous assignment of the insurance to her. The trial court awarded judgment to plaintiff, holding the letter ineffective as an assignment of the policy. Held, reversed, one justice dissenting.

Petty v. Mutual Benefit Life Ins. Co., (Iowa 1944) 15 N.W. (2d) 613.