Annuity Beneficiary Sues Reinsurer Over Payment Timing
November 21, 2024 by Allison Bell
A federal lawsuit could affect how much flexibility, if any, life insurers and reinsurers have to stretch the terms of old contracts to make products easier and cheaper to administer.
The plaintiff in the case, Anthony Ortiz-Diaz, is suing Wilton Reassurance Life Company of New York and related companies over the reinsurer’s decision to process all structured settlement annuity payments on a single day at the end of the month, even if that means the payments reach each beneficiary weeks after the payment due date stated in the beneficiary’s structured settlement annuity contract.
Wink’s Moore on the Market: When I bought my first life insurance policy, I chose participating whole life.
It was guaranteed, plus I received dividends. Nothing to worry about, as long as I made my premium payments.
Right?
Well…
Things changed.
My insurance company demutualized.
Then, they sold the insurance company to a different, bigger company.
The administration of my policy was shopped-out to a third-party administrator (TPA).
They lost one of my contracts; took them weeks to find it. They had the nerve to tell me that I was wrong about which insurance company my coverage was with!
I went four years without any annual statements.
The dividends disappeared from my policies.
The moral of the story?
Sometimes, you can do your best due diligence on an insurance company, and end up in a situation that you have no control over.
This is a story of one such annuity contract holder. -sjm
