512B.36 Exemption of certain societies.

1. This chapter does not affect or apply to any of the following:

a. Grand or subordinate lodges of societies, orders, or associations now doing business in this state which provide benefits exclusively through local or subordinate lodges.

b. Orders, societies, or associations which admit to membership only persons engaged in one or more crafts or hazardous occupations, in the same or similar lines of business, insuring only their own members and their families, and the spouses’ societies or spouses’ auxiliaries to such orders, societies, or associations.

c. Domestic societies which limit their membership to employees of a particular city or town, designated firm, business house, or corporation which provide for a death benefit of not more than four hundred dollars or disability benefits of not more than three hundred fifty dollars to any person in any one year, or both.

d. Domestic societies or associations of a purely religious, charitable, or benevolent description, which provide for a death benefit of not more than four hundred dollars or for disability benefits of not more than three hundred fifty dollars to any one person in any one year, or both.

2. A society or association described in subsection 1, paragraph “a” or “d”, which provides for death or disability benefits for which benefit certificates are issued, and any such society or association included in paragraph “d” which has more than one thousand members, is not exempt from this chapter but shall comply with all requirements of this chapter.

3. A society which is exempt from the requirements of this chapter, except a society described in subsection 1, paragraph “b”, shall not give or allow, or promise to give or allow to any person any compensation for procuring new members.

4. A society which provides for benefits in case of death or disability resulting solely from accident, and which does not obligate itself to pay natural death or sick benefits, has all of the privileges and is subject to all the applicable provisions of this chapter and rules adopted by the commission pursuant to this chapter except that the provisions relating to medical examination, valuations of benefit certificates, and incontestability, do not apply to such a society.

5. The commissioner may require from a society, by examination or otherwise, information that will enable the commissioner to determine whether the society is exempt from this chapter.

6. A society exempt under this section, is also exempt from all other provisions of the general insurance laws of this state.

90 Acts, ch 1148, §37

Referred to in §512B.3