No person shall make, issue, circulate, or cause to be made, issued, or circulated, any estimate, circular, or statement misrepresenting the terms of any policy issued or to be issued or the benefits or advantages promised thereby or the dividends or share of the surplus to be received thereon, or make any false or misleading statement as to the dividends or share of surplus previously paid on similar policies, or make any misleading representation or any misrepresentation as to the financial condition of any insurer, or as to the legal reserve system upon which any life insurer operates, or use any name or title of any policy or class of policies misrepresenting the true nature thereof. Violation of this section is a Class 2 misdemeanor.
S.D. Codified Laws § 58-33-5
Misrepresentation or false advertising of policies as misdemeanor
Known as the Unauthorized Insurers False Advertising Process Act
The act spans §§ 58–58 (145 sections).
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Delka v. Continental Casualty Co. (2008)
Most recently applied in Sentell v. Farm Mutual Ins. (March 2021)
Source: SL 1966, ch 111, ch 13, § 6; SL 1978, ch 359, § 2.
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 Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.