Section 118: Life company defined
Section 118. All companies doing business in the commonwealth under any charter, compact, agreement or statute of this or any other state, involving the payment of money or other thing of value to families or representatives of policy and certificate holders or members, conditioned upon the continuance or cessation of human life, or involving an insurance, guaranty, contract or pledge for the payment of endowments or annuities, shall be deemed to be life companies, and shall not make any such insurance, guaranty, contract or pledge in the commonwealth, or to or with any resident thereof, which does not distinctly state the amount of benefits payable, the manner of payment and the consideration therefor, nor any such insurance, guaranty, contract or pledge the performance of which is contingent upon the payment of assessments made upon survivors; provided that corporations incorporated for any educational, charitable, benevolent or religious purpose shall not be deemed life companies and shall not be subject to this chapter. Nothing herein relating to the consideration for the policy shall apply to any extra compensation which may be charged by a company to the insured for engaging in military or naval service in time of war.
All life insurance hereafter transacted by the corporations which formerly issued policies on the assessment plan under chapter four hundred and twenty-one of the acts of eighteen hundred and ninety and acts in amendment thereof shall be carried on in accordance with this chapter; but such corporations may carry out in good faith their assessment contracts made with their members prior to July first, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine.
Any domestic stock company organized to make contracts for the payment of variable annuities shall be deemed to be a life company with power to transact any one or more of the categories of business set forth in the sixteenth clause of section forty-seven, and the assets of any such company set aside for such variable annuity contracts shall be deemed to be one or more separate investment accounts, established under and meeting the requirements of section one hundred and thirty-two G, and all policies and contracts issued and insurance business transacted by any such company shall be in accordance with the provisions of this chapter applicable to life companies; but such provisions to the contrary notwithstanding, any such company may retain its corporate name. The provisions of this paragraph shall apply notwithstanding any inconsistent provision in the agreement of association or charter of any such domestic stock company.