Life Insurance Products
Bates Group LLC brings our firm wide experience with litigation testimony and consulting experts and combines that with a deep understanding of the nuances and unique complexity of the life insurance field through our life insurance practice area. Our experts, with years of industry experience, consult, advise and testify on matters concerning life insurance products, practices and standards for brokers, agents and registered representatives.
Over the years, the array of life insurance options has expanded to give consumers the benefit of a diversity of choice. Bates Group’s consultants and experts provide testimony regarding variable, universal, permanent, and term life insurance. We also provide guidance on stranger originated life insurance (STOLI), corporate owned life insurance (COLI), bank owned life insurance (BOLI), life settlements, as well as in the broader field of life insurance underwriting, including the issuance process.
We are frequently retained to assist our clients in analyzing and consulting on various life insurance products and policies:
Policy Continuation
When an estate initiated litigation against an insurance agency involving universal life insurance policies that had lapsed, Bates was engaged to calculate the hypothetical premiums that would have been required to keep the policies in force. We provided a potential damages calculation which included hypothetical insurance premiums and death benefits discounted to present value. Our expert was also able to consult on the suitability and sales practices involved with the sale and maintenance of the universal life insurance products.
Life Settlements
A recent life settlement project included actuarial analyses of selected policies where the sellers were unable to find buyers in the secondary market. Our expert provided testimony regarding the policies as well the broad economic decline that generated a perfect economic storm in the second half of 2008 and the implications of those events for the life settlement industry.
Welfare Benefit Plans
The Bates team includes insurance, tax and damages experts who assist counsel in defending welfare benefit programs including 419(e) plans. Our experts have consulted with counsel to explain how the insurance products work, discuss IRS tax implications and to calculate the economic benefit of these types of plans.
Asset/Sector Allocations
We have performed a large number of asset and sector allocations/analyses for variable annuity and variable life contracts. These analyses were useful in defending against suitability (concentration) claims and comparing to model portfolio allocations.
Profit/(Loss)
Bates has analyzed thousands of Annuity/Life Insurance contracts to determine gains or losses associated with Fixed/Variable/Indexed Annuities as well as Term/Whole Life/Universal Life/Variable Life Insurance products. For variable products, our analyses can identify subaccount performance as well as the overall contract’s performance.