What does the term “doing insurance business” include?

The term “doing an insurance business or “transacting an insurance business” includes:

a)      Making or proposing to make, as insurer, any insurance contract;

b)      Making, or proposing to make, as surety, any contract of suretyship as a vocation and not as merely incidental to any other legitimate business or activity of the surety;

c)      Doing any kind of business including a reinsurance business, specifically recognized as constituting the doing of an insurance business within the meaning of this Code;

d)      Doing or proposing to do any business in substance equivalent to any of the foregoing in a manner designed to evade the provisions of this code.

Does the fact that no profit was derived from the transaction nor a separate consideration received therefore mean that no insurance business was transacted?

No.  Fact that no profit is derived from the contract or transaction or that no separate or direct consideration is received for such contract or transaction is NOT deemed conclusive to show that no insurance business was transacted.

Will any suretyship agreement amount to an insurance contract?

No.  In order for a suretyship agreement to come under the purview of the Insurance Code, the Surety undertaking to ensure the performance of the obligations must be registered with the Insurance Commissioner and must have been issued by the latter with a certificate of authority.  Furthermore, the person acting as a surety is habitually engaged as such for a livelihood.