Section 54F. Any company authorized to insure against loss or damage by fire, which has been actively engaged in the fire insurance business in one or more states of the United States continuously for ten years, or less than ten years with the approval of the commissioner, or whose predecessor or predecessors, if any prior to merger or consolidation, shall have been so engaged for such period, may, notwithstanding the provisions of sections forty-eight, fifty-one, clause (e) of fifty-four, or fifty-four B, insure against loss or damage to, or the legal liability of the insured with respect to, commercial property, including goods in storage and in transit, stocks of merchandise, furniture and fixtures, equipment, materials and supplies and the insured’s interests in improvements and betterments, whether the property of the insured or the property of others, while anywhere within the continental United States or in transit in Canada; provided, that insurance against loss or damage by perils other than the peril of fire may be written only when insurance against the peril of fire is written in the same policy and on forms which have been submitted to and approved by the commissioner; and provided, further, that no such company shall issue any insurance under the authority of this section unless it possesses a surplus to policyholders of not less than five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars or until it has made reinsurance arrangements satisfactory to the commissioner, as provided in section twenty.