1866 ARTICLE 48A.

record (or file) the articles of incorporation, and furnish the incorporators a
preliminary certificate authorizing said association to solicit members as
hereinafter provided. Upon receipt of said certificate from the insurance
commissioner, said association may solicit members for the purpose of com-
pleting its organization and shall collect from each applicant the amount
of not less than one regular 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 associa-
tion 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 bonafide ap-
plications 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 said five hundred applicants have been initiated, nor until there
has been submitted to the insurance commissioner, under oath of the presi-
dent and secretary or corresponding officers, of such association, a list of
such applicants, giving their names, addresses, date examined, date ap-
proved, date initiated, name and number of subordinate branch of which'
each applicant is a member, amount of benefits to be granted, rate of stated
periodical contributions which shall be sufficient to provide for meeting
the mortuary obligation, contracted, when value for death benefits, upon
the basis of the National Fraternal Congress Table of Mortality, as
adopted by the National Fraternal Congress 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 perma-
nent 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 sworn statement
of the treasurer or corresponding officer of such association that at least
five hundred applicants have each paid in cash at least one regular monthly
payment as herein provided per one thousand dollars of indemnity to be
effected, which payments in the aggregate shall amount to at least twenty-
five hundred dollars, all of which shall be credited to the mortuary or
disability fund on account of such applicants, and no part of which may
be used for expenses.

Said advanced payments shall, during the period of organization, be
held, in trust and, if the organization is not completed within one year, as
hereinafter provided, returned to said applicants. The insurance commis-
sioner may make such examination and require such further information
as he deems advisable, and upon presentation of satisfactory evidence that
the association has complied with all the provisions of law he shall issue
to such association a certificate to that effect. Such certificate shall be
prima facie evidence of the existence of such association at the date of such
certificate. The insurance commissioner shall cause a record of such cer-