1604 LAWS OF MARYLAND. [Ch. 824]

insurance commissioner, conditioned upon the return of the
advanced payments as provided in this section to applicants, if
the organization is not completed within one year, shall be filed
with the insurance commissioner, who may require such further
information as he deems necessary, and if the purposes of the
association conform to the requirements of this act and all pro-
visions of law have been complied with, the insurance commis-
sioner shall so certify, and retain and record (or file) the arti-
cles of incorporation, and furnish the incorporators a prelimi-
nary certificate authorizing said association to solicit members
as hereinafter provided. Upon receipt of said certificate from
the insurance commissioner, said association may solicit mem-
bers for the purpose of completing its organization, and shall
collect from each applicant the amount of not less than one regu-
lar monthly payment in accordance with its table of rates as
provided by its constitution and laws and shall issue to each
such applicant a receipt for the amount so collected. But no
such association shall incur any liability other than for such
advanced payments, nor issue any benefit certificate, nor pay
or allow, or offer or promise to pay or allow to any person any
death or disability benefit until actual bona fide applications for
death benefit certificates have been secured upon at least five
hundred lives for at least one thousand dollars each, and all such
applicants for death benefits shall have been regularly examined
by legally qualified practicing physicians, and certificates of
such examinations have been duly filed and approved by the
chief medical examiner of such association nor until there shall
be established ten subordinate lodges or branches into which
aaid five hundred applicants have been initiated, nor until there
has been submitted to the insurance commissioner under oath of
the president and secretary or corresponding officers, of such
association, a list of such applicants, giving their names, ad-
dresses, date examined, date approved, date initiated, name and
number of subordinate branch of which each applicant is a
member, amount of benefits to be granted, rate of stated period-
ical contributions which shall be sufficient to provide for meet-
ing the mortuary obligation, contracted, when valued for death
benefits, upon the basis of the National Fraternal Congress
Table of Mortality, as adopted by the National Fraternal Con-
gress August 23, 1899, or any higher standard at the option of
the association and for disability benefits by tables based upon
reliable experience and for combined death and permanent total
disability benefits by tables based upon reliable experience, with
an interest assumption not higher than four per cent, per annum,
nor until it shall be shown to the insurance commissioner by the