Life Insurance and Annuities

Reardon Scanlon’s attorneys have represented life insurance companies throughout the United States and have obtained favorable results in business and regulatory matters and litigation ranging from routine to high-stakes litigation.We have successfully handled a diverse range of life insurance matters involving bad faith, fraud, insurable interest, unclaimed property, reinstatement, beneficiary disputes, breach, rescission, incontestability, interpleader, and replacement and suitability. Our attorneys have also represented insurers in rogue agent cases involving improper sales practices, unfair trade practices, and vanishing premium claims.We also have significant experience with annuities and annuity related litigation involving a variety of annuity products from immediate, deferred, fixed, variable, qualified and non-qualified, 403(b) annuities, structured settlement annuities, and IRA annuities. Our attorneys have ably handled regulatory and litigation matters involving misrepresentation, suitability, senior sales, sales practices and distribution, and product features and benefits.The firm’s attorneys have significant experience with group benefits litigation and ERISA claims litigation, as well as insurance company insolvency disputes, and guaranty associations. We act as national coordinating counsel to numerous insurers in matters involving secondary insurance market litigation.Our attorneys have significant courtroom experience, and obtained successful outcomes for our clients, including the following:

• Obtained summary judgment for an insurer in a matter involving three policies canceled for non-payment, in which the court favorably interpreted policy language as against the "mailbox rule".   See Zamora v. United of Omaha Life Ins. Co., 15-cv-9206 (S.D.N.Y.) (Sep. 18, 2017).
• Obtained a defense verdict on behalf of an insurance company following a week-long jury trial in Massachusetts state court, where the plaintiff had claimed the insurer and its agent made misrepresentations and engaged in negligent conduct in connection with the sale of a $12 million second-to-die life insurance policy, and the plaintiff also alleged that the insurer negligently supervised its agent. After deliberating for less than four hours, the jury rejected the plaintiff’s breach of contract and other claims, as well as a request for a multi-million dollar damages award, and returned a verdict in our client’s favor.
• Following a four-day trial in Federal Court in Texas, obtained permanent injunction against a secondary market entity to prevent interference with insurance client’s contractual and statutory rights.
• Obtained successful dispositive rulings in favor of our annuity issuer clients in state court proceedings involving secondary insurance market transactions in more than a dozen states, including California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.