Jury Awards $34 Million to State Farm Policyholders
Attorneys from Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP and Miller Schirger LLC obtained an eight-figure jury verdict for life insurance policyholders who were allegedly overcharged for more than two decades.
KANSAS CITY, Mo., July 18, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- After two hours of deliberations, a federal jury in Missouri awarded more than $34 million to State Farm policyholders in a class action trial. The class action was brought on behalf of around 24,000 current and former owners of universal life insurance policies issued in Missouri. Universal life insurance is a type of life insurance that includes an interest-bearing savings account from which the insurer deducts money each month to cover the cost of the life insurance. In this case, the jury found that State Farm systematically overcharged its policyholders for 23 years.
The case is one of several cases across the country being prosecuted by Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP and Miller Schirger LLC against insurance companies for overcharging universal life insurance policyholders. In a pretrial ruling, the Court determined that State Farm violated the 94030-25 policy as a matter of law. The jury was asked to determine if the violation caused damages to policyholders and, if so, the amount of those damages. The trial lasted three days.
If the award is sustained on appeal, class members will be notified of the right to share in the settlement at a later date.
"This is a great story of the little guy taking on a huge company and winning," said Stueve Siegel Hanson's Norm Siegel, who delivered the opening and closing arguments to the jury. "The most egregious aspect of these cases is that there is no reasonable way for a policyholder to know that they're being overcharged because the overcharge is hidden behind a complex, actuarial 'cost of insurance rate' that is indecipherable to the average person. You have to hire a lawyer and actuary to deconstruct that rate and compare it to the proper rate to know you're being damaged. You can be overcharged for decades without knowing, which is what the jury found here."
The case is Vogt v. State Farm Life Insurance Co., U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Case No. 2:16-cv-04170.
Stueve Siegel Hanson and Miller Schirger are prosecuting several other cases of life-insurance policyholders who it is alleged have been overcharged across the country. The firms have obtained settlements making available relief valued at over $2 billion to policyholders. If you have a variable universal insurance policy that you would like to have evaluated, or want more information, please visit http://www.stuevesiegel.com/ssh/investigations/cost-of-insurance.
SOURCE Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP and Miller Schirger LLC
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