58-16-39. Termination of employment or membership causing policy to cease--Issuance of individual policy to person entitled thereto, application and payment of premium. Except as provided in § 58-16-31, a policy of group life insurance shall contain a provision that if the insurance, or any portion of it, on a person covered under the policy ceases because of termination of employment or of membership in the class or classes eligible for coverage under the policy, such person shall be entitled to have issued to him by the insurer, without evidence of insurability, an individual policy of life insurance without health or other supplementary benefits, provided application for the individual policy shall be made, and the first premium paid to the insurer, within thirty-one days after such termination, and provided further that:

(1) The individual policy shall, at the option of such person, be on any one of the forms, except term insurance, then customarily issued by the insurer at the age and for the amount applied for;

(2) The individual policy shall be in an amount not in excess of the amount of life insurance which ceases because of such termination, less the amount of any life insurance for which such person is or becomes eligible under the same or any other group policy within thirty-one days after such termination, provided that any amount of insurance which shall have matured on or before the date of such termination as an endowment payable to the person insured, whether in one sum or in installments or in the form of an annuity, shall not, for the purposes of this provision, be included in the amount which is considered to cease because of such termination; and

(3) The premium on the individual policy shall be at the insurer's then customary rate applicable to the form and amount of the individual policy, to the class of risk to which such person then belongs, and to his age attained on the effective date of the individual policy.Source: SL 1966, ch 111, ch 24, § 3 (8).