Perry v Suffields Ltd

In *Perry v Suffields Ltd*, the Supreme Court of Queensland considered a dispute concerning a life assurance policy. The plaintiff, Perry, sought to recover the surrender value of a policy issued by the defendant, Suffields Ltd. The policy had lapsed due to non-payment of premiums, and the defendant argued that the plaintiff was not entitled to the surrender value due to forfeiture provisions within the policy.

The central legal issue before the Court was whether the provisions of section 22 of the *Life Assurance Companies Act 1901* (Qld) applied to the policy, thereby entitling the plaintiff to the surrender value despite the forfeiture clause. This section of the Act conferred a statutory benefit on policyholders, preventing forfeiture of policies after a certain period of premium payments, and mandating the payment of a surrender value. The Court had to determine if the parties had validly contracted out of this statutory protection.

The Court reasoned that section 22 of the Act was intended to protect policyholders from losing the benefit of their policies due to inadvertent non-payment of premiums. It held that the statutory provision could not be contracted out of by the parties. Therefore, despite the express terms of the policy purporting to forfeit the surrender value upon non-payment of premiums, the plaintiff was entitled to recover that value as provided by the Act. The Court found that the policy had been in force for a sufficient period to attract the protection of section 22.