By:  Leedom                                           S.B. No. 1222
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the payment of interest to designated beneficiaries.
    1-2        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-3        SECTION 1.  Article 3.48, Insurance Code, is amended to read
    1-4  as follows:
    1-5        Art. 3.48.  PAYMENTS TO DESIGNATED BENEFICIARIES.  Whenever
    1-6  any person shall procure the issuance of a policy of insurance on
    1-7  his or her life in any legal reserve life insurance company, and
    1-8  designate in writing filed with the company the beneficiary to
    1-9  receive the proceeds thereof, the company issuing such policy
   1-10  shall, in the absence of the receipt by it of notice of an adverse
   1-11  claim to the proceeds of the policy from one having a bona fide
   1-12  legal claim to such proceeds or a part thereof, pay such proceeds
   1-13  becoming due on the death of the insured to the person so
   1-14  designated as beneficiary, and such payment so made, in the absence
   1-15  of such notice received by the insurance company prior to the date
   1-16  of the payment of the proceeds, shall discharge the company from
   1-17  all liability under the policy.
   1-18        Interest shall accrue from the date due proof of loss is
   1-19  received by the insurance company to the date the insurer accepts
   1-20  the claim and offers to pay.  Interest shall be paid at the same
   1-21  time that proceeds from the policy are paid under this article.
   1-22  The rate of interest shall be either the rate so provided in the
   1-23  policy or, if there is no such provision in the policy, the rate of
    2-1  interest on proceeds left on deposit with the insurer.
    2-2        The provisions of this article shall apply to all policies
    2-3  now in existence as well as to all policies hereafter written.
    2-4        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-5  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-6  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-7  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-8  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-9  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-10  passage, and it is so enacted.