Papa Has a Brand New Bag
All in the Family – Introducing Family Owned Life Insurance™ (aka FOLI™)
TAKE A CHANCE ON ME! PART II - Embracing the Magic of Private Placement Life Insurance and Private Placement Variable Annuities
RETURN TO FOREVER - What Game Shall We Play Today?
NOWOTNY KNOWS SQUAT! Part IV Using Post-Retirement Medical Plans to Raise AUM and Sell Life Insurance
NOWOTNY ON DEATH AND TAXES EPISODE 35 USING POST-RETIREMENT MEDICAL PLANS TO RAISE AUM
NOWOTNY KNOWS SQUAT! Part 3 Using Malta Pension Plans to Raise AUM and Sell More Life Insurance
NOWOTNY KNOWS SQUAT! Part 2 Using PPLI and PPVA Annuities to Raise Assets Under Management and Sell More Life Insurance
INTRODUCING MALTA SPLIT DOLLAR
WHERE EAGLES DARE-INTRODUCING MALTA SPLIT DOLLAR
Private Placement Life Insurance Discussion Podcast
ISLA DEL ENCANTO - INTRODUCING BORICUA SPLIT DOLLAR
Isla del Encanto-Introducing Boricua Split Dollar
Everything You Need to Know About Beneficiary Designations
THE WONDER YEARS WEBINAR
HEAVEN CAN WAIT
Until recently, Oregon courts did not allow policyholders to bring claims against their insurers under Oregon’s Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act and only allowed tort-based “bad faith” claims in narrow circumstances....more
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Insurance Insights, a gathering of notable legal developments and trends relevant to the insurance industry. In this issue, the California Supreme Court covers COVID-19 claims, Georgia...more
In Advance Trust & Life Escrow Services, LTA v. Protective Life Insurance Co. (Mar. 2, 2024), the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s dismissal of breach of contract...more
In Ross v. Venerable Insurance & Annuity Co., a Missouri appellate court reversed judgment in favor of the named beneficiary of a flexible premium deferred annuity contract. Following the annuitant’s death, the beneficiary...more
Regulators Hit Jackpot: Off-Channel Communications - Several years before announcing the first “off-channel” communications enforcement action, the SEC and FINRA cautioned broker-dealers and investment advisers about...more
In Cost of Insurance Litigation, Courts Continue to Disagree Over the Meaning of the Key Contractual Provision - If you see a movie that is “based on a true story,” how close to the story are you expecting the movie to be?...more
In 2012, the California Legislature enacted changes to the California Insurance Code that provide protections intended to shield consumers from losing life insurance coverage due to late or missed insurance premium...more
Court Emphasizes Disclosure Substance Over Form - A recent decision in Nofsinger v. Jackson National Life Insurance Co. shut down a putative class action in which the plaintiff alleged she surrendered her annuity contract...more
While challenges to insurers’ exercises of discretion in setting cost of insurance rates has been the principal focus of litigation involving universal life (UL) insurance products for quite some time, a putative class action...more
After years of pursuing life insurers with Cost of Insurance (COI) class actions, we are now seeing a new life insurance secondary market investor strategy — suing life insurers on a class action basis for not paying enough...more
On August 13, 2020, in the putative class action challenging AXA’s COI rate increase on Athena Universal Life II (“AUL II”) policies, Judge Jesse M. Furman of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New...more
Life insurers bid farewell to a fairly moderate year of class action litigation. Although several class actions were filed against life insurers in the last quarter of 2019, the filings were reflective of the litigation...more
The Ninth Circuit recently affirmed a summary judgment ruling in favor of Minnesota Life Insurance Co. on all claims stemming from its denial of an accelerated life insurance payment. ...more
No Recovery for Paying Premiums in Excess of Policy Face Amount - Since we last reported on Goostree v. Liberty National Life Insurance Co. in the October 2019 issue of Expect Focus — Life, Annuity, and Retirement Solutions,...more
The Eleventh Circuit recently examined the application of the $5 million amount-in-controversy requirement under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) to disputes over life insurance premiums and policies. It concluded that...more
McClendon v. North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. (M.D. Tenn. 2019) - In McClendon, the plaintiff’s mother purchased a whole life insurance policy to insure the plaintiff’s brother, and subsequently took out a loan on...more
On September 18, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued an opinion in Arena v. Riversource Life Insurance Company, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 28052 (3d Cir. Sep. 18, 2019) (non-precedential), affirming the...more
On August 19, 2019 a federal judge in the Northern District of California denied State Farm Life Insurance Company’s (State Farm) motion for summary judgment on Plaintiff Elizabeth A. Bally’s claims for conversion and breach...more
Athene Life and Annuity Co. v. Am. Gen. Life Ins. Co., C.A. No. 2018-0244-SG (Del. Ch. July 31, 2019). The Court of Chancery is a court of limited jurisdiction. It maintains subject matter jurisdiction only for (i)...more
Individualized defenses and choice-of-law issues played a key role in preventing class certification in a recent challenge to a life insurer’s discretion to adjust its “risk rates” on universal life (UL) insurance policies....more
In a recent decision by a New Jersey district court partially denying a motion to dismiss, the characterization of individual indexed annuities as installment contracts had a significant impact on the potential liability of...more
The Southern District of Indiana recently dismissed a putative class action alleging that the defendant-insurer improperly inflated premiums and cost of insurance (COI) rates on universal life policies....more
Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Lindenberg v. Jackson Nat’l Life Ins. Co., 912 F.3d 348 (6th Cir. 2018), ruled that a plaintiff may recover both bad faith damages and punitive damages...more
Should divided panels of federal appellate courts really be deciding state-law issues of first impression? That’s what happened last month in Lindenberg v. Jackson National Life Insurance Co. In Lindenberg, two Sixth Circuit...more
In 2011, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed the Tennessee Civil Justice Act, a tort reform measure limiting monetary damages. Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-39-104. This law places a cap on punitive damages of two times the...more