(a) When the agreement of merger or consolidation as filed with the Insurance Commissioner as required under § 23-69-144 becomes effective, the separate existence of the constituent corporations shall cease, and they shall become a single corporation in accordance with the agreement, possessing all rights, privileges, powers, franchises, and immunities of a public as well as of a private nature and being subject to all the liabilities and duties of each of the corporations so merged or consolidated, and all, and singular, the rights, privileges, powers, franchises, and immunities of each of the corporations and all property, real, personal, and mixed, and all debts owing on whatever account and all other things in action of or belonging to each of the corporations shall be vested in the surviving or consolidated corporation. All property, rights, privileges, powers, franchises, and immunities and all and every other interest shall be thereafter the property of the surviving or consolidated corporation as effectually as they were of the several and respective constituent corporations.

(b) However, all rights of creditors and all liens upon the property of any of the constituent corporations shall be preserved unimpaired, limited in lien to the property affected by the lien at the time of the merger or consolidation. All debts, liabilities, and duties of the respective constituent corporations shall thenceforth attach to the surviving or consolidated corporation and may be enforced against it to the same extent as if the debts, liabilities, and duties had been incurred or contracted by it.