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identically). * * * [Id. at 1036-1037; fn. refs. and
some citations omitted.]
Our conclusion that the term “total reserves” does not
include accrued unpaid losses is also supported by examining the
structure of the statute. The applicable statute, section 816,
treats the class of “unpaid losses” as a subset of a much larger
class of items called “reserves”. An insurer’s “total reserves”
are defined by section 816(c) to include its “unpaid losses”, and
the latter term is followed in the text by a clause that reads
“and * * * all other insurance reserves required by law”, sec.
816(c)(3). The fact that an accrued unpaid loss is not a reserve
in the pertinent insurance industry means that it cannot be
included in a subset of reserves, nor followed by “other
insurance reserves”. Moreover, an insurer’s “unpaid losses” are
added to its “life insurance reserves” under section 816(a) to
reach a sum that must “comprise more than 50 percent of its total
reserves”. Sec. 816(a).
Our interpretation is further supported by the fact that the
word “reserves” had acquired a fixed and definite meaning in the
life and A&H industry at the time of the 1942 Act. The 1942 Act,
as discussed above, added the term “unpaid losses” to the Code,
and the legislative history surrounding the 1942 Act contains no
indication that Congress intended to use the word “reserves” in
other than the meaning that was then crystallized in the life and
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