The summons and any other legal process in any action or proceeding against it must be served on an insurance company as defined in Section 38-1-20, including fraternal benefit associations, by delivering two copies of the summons or any other legal process to the Director of the Department of Insurance, as attorney of the company with a fee of ten dollars, of which five dollars must be retained by the director to offset the costs he incurs in service of process and of which five dollars must be deposited to the credit of the general fund of the State. A company shall appoint the director as its attorney pursuant to the provisions of Section 38-5-70. This service is considered sufficient service upon the company. When legal process against any company with the fee provided in this section is served upon the director, he shall immediately forward by registered or certified mail one of the duplicate copies prepaid directed toward the company at its home office or, in the case of a fraternal benefit association, to its secretary or corresponding officer at the head of the association.
S.C. Code Ann. § 15-9-270
Service on insurance companies
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Harbor Island Owners' Ass'n v. Preferred Island Properties, Inc. (2006)
Most recently applied in White Oak Manor, Inc. v. Lexington Insurance (January 2014)
1962 Code SECTION 10-425; 1952 Code SECTION 10-425; 1947 (45) 322; 1960 (51) 1646; 1964 (53) 1746; 1971 (57) 709; 1979 Act No. 15, SECTION 1; 1987 Act No. 155, SECTION 15; 1988 …
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: South Carolina Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Carolina statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.