Five States—Connecticut,[292] Massachusetts,[293] Ohio,[294] New York,[295] and Michigan,[296]—have deemed it necessary to pass laws prohibiting any discrimination on account of race or color by life insurance companies. All of the statutes are essentially the same. They declare that no life insurance company shall make any distinction or discrimination between white and colored persons wholly or partly of African descent, as to premiums or rates charged for policies; nor shall such company demand higher premiums from colored persons than from whites of the same age, sex, general condition of health, and hope of longevity; nor shall it make or require any rebate, diminution, or discount upon the sum to be paid on the policy in case of the death of the colored person. Such a company is forbidden to add any stipulation by which the insured binds himself, his heirs, executors, assigns, etc., to accept any sum less than the face value of the policy. Massachusetts provides that if a company refuses to insure a colored person making application, it must, upon his request, give him a certificate of the regular examining physician, saying that the refusal was not because the applicant is a person of color, but solely upon the grounds of general health and prospect of longevity as would be applicable to white persons of the same age and sex. The Connecticut statute enacts that any condition or stipulation in the policy, inserted because of the color or race of the insured, shall be void. Ohio provides that any corporation, or officer or agent of such corporation, violating the provisions of its statute, shall be fined for each offence not less than one hundred dollars nor more than two hundred dollars, but that nothing in the act shall be construed as to require any agent or company to take or receive the application for insurance of any person. New York makes the violation of the law a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of from fifty dollars to five hundred dollars. Michigan goes a step further and declares that anyone violating the law shall forfeit to the State five hundred dollars, to be recovered by the attorney general, and that any officer or agent who violates it shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and punished by imprisonment in the county jail not over one year or by a fine of from fifty dollars to five hundred dollars, or both.