The resident agent of an insurance com pany having general authority to issue pol icies and rene*als, fix rates and accept risks, collect premiums and cancel insurance, and perform all the duties of a recording agent, is a general agent for the locality; Hartford Fire Ins. Co. v. Orr, 56 Ill. App. 629. If the agent acts as such for both the company and the insured the contract may be avoided by either party who, at the time of the contract, did not know of such business agency for the other party or had, not knowing the . facts, ratified it ; British-American Assur. CO. v. Cooper, 6 Colo. App. 25, 40 Pac. 147.
When an insurance agent solicited busi ness in an adjoining state, assumed to with full authority, received the premium and issued the policy, he may be considered as a general agent and not a special agent without authority to make the contract; Hahn v. Guardian Assur. Co., 23 Or. 576, 32 Pac. 683, 37 Am. St. Rep. 709.
It has been held in a federal case that before the execution of a policy, the power and authority of a local and soliciting agent are co-extensive with the business intrusted to his care, and his positive knowledge as to material facts and his acts and declarations within the scope of his employment are ob ligatory on his principal, unless restricted by limitations well known to the other party at the time of the transaction ; West End Hotel & Land Co. v. Ins. Co., 74 Fed. 114.
The powers of agents were extensively discussed by the Kansas supreme court : "The bulk of the fire insurance business of the state is done by eastern companies, who are represented here by agents." "It is a matter of no small moment therefore that the exact measure and limit of the powers of these agents be understood. All the as sured knows about the company is generally through the agent. All the information as to the powers of, and limitations upon, the agent is received from him. Practically, the agent is the principal in the making of the contract. It seems to us therefore that the rule may be properly thus laid down that an agent authorized to issue policies of insur ance and consummate the contract binds his principal by every act, agreement, represen tation, or waiver, within the ordinary scope and limit of insurance business which is not known by the insured to be beyond the au thority granted to the agent ;" German Ins. Co. v. Gray, 43 Kan. 497, 23 Pac. 637, 8 L. R. A. 70, 19 Am. St. Rep. 150 ; and it was held in that case that an insurance company might, through its agents, by a parol con tract, waive provisions stated in the policy with reference to the manner of altering or waiving its terms and conditions; West chester Fire Ins. Co. v. Earle, 33 Mich. 143;
the court, in considering the question wheth er an agent of a company might change by parol the conditions of a policy wherein it was provided that it could only be done upon the consent of the company written thereon, held that a written bargain is of no higher legal degree than a parol one. "Either may vary or discharge the other, and there can be no more force in an agreement in writing not to agree by parol than in a parol agree ment not to agree in writing. Every such agreement is ended by the new one which contradicts it ;" American Central Ins. Co. v. McLanathan, 11 Kan. 533, "Where insurance companies deal with the community through a local agency, persons having transactions with the company are entitled to assume, in the absence of knowl edge as to the agent's authority, that the acts and declarations of the agent are valid as if they proceeded directly from the company ;" Hardwick v. "Ins. Co., 20 Or. 547, 26 Pac. ,840.
An attempted restriction upon the power of the officer or agents, acting within the scope of their general authority, to waive provisions of the policy, unless such waiver is written upon the policy itself, is inef fectual; Dick v. Ins. Co., 92 Wis. 46, 65 N. W. 742.
• A provision in the application or in the policy making the person procuring the ap plication the agent of the insured and not of the company, cannot change the legal status of such person as agent of the com pany or the law of agency if he is in fact the agent of the company; Coles v. Ins. Co., 41 W. Va. 261, 23 S. E. 733.
A broker was held to be the agent of the company where he solicited applications which were sent by him to the agent, by whom policies were sent to the broker and the premiums were charged to the broker ; in such case the finding by the jury that the broker was the duly authorized agent of the company within the meaning of the provisions in the policy requiring payments of the premiums to the company or its duly authorized agent within a certain time, will not be disturbed; Estes v. Ins. Co., 67 N. H. 462, 33 Atl. 515. In the absence of direct proof of the broker's authority to act for the insurer or insured he may establish his agency by showing that the act relied on was within the scope of his authority ; American Fire Ins. Co. v. Brooks, 83 Md. 22, 34 Atl. 373. Where insurance is procured through a broker, though at his solicitation, he is the agent of the insured and his acts will not bind the company, but when his employ ment extends only to the procurement of the policy he ceases to be an agent of the insured on the execution and delivery; id.