"An insurance agent is an agent employed by an insurer, usually an insurance company, to perform some act or acts in furtherance of the business of his principal. In a narrower but more familiar sense the term is used to designate those agents employed to solicit risks and effect insurances. While it is not necessary to prove an express contract between an insurance company and one alleged to be its agent to establish the relation of principal and agent between them, either that must be done or the conduct of the parties must be such that the relation may be inferred therefrom. Whether, upon a given state of facts, one is or is not to be deemed the agent of the insurer, has generally been held to be a question of law. That the insurer held one out as agent, or recognized his acts done as agent, has been held sufficient to establish agency. But agency cannot be proven by the declaration and acts of the alleged agent unknown to the insurer.

18 Campbell vs. New England Mut. Ins. Co., 98 Mass., 381.

19 Liverpool, etc., Ins. Co. vs. Kear-vey, 46 S. W. Rep., 414.

"The Medical Examiner for an insurance company, as such, is not the agent of the company for the purpose of soliciting or filling out applications for insurance. In some of the United States there are statutes declaring what persons shall be considered agents of insurance companies.

"A person authorized by an insurance company to accept risks, to agree upon and settle the terms of insurance, and to carry them into effect by issuing and renewing policies, is a general agent of the company, though he represents his principal only in a particular locality, or within a limited territory, and is therefore called a local agent." 20

The agent of the insurer is not the agent of the insured and cannot be made so by any ingenious wording of the contract.21

The powers, rights, duties and liabilities of insurance agents are in the main determined by the general rules of agency. The ordinary insurance agent does not have the power to fix the terms of an insurance policy.