Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Advocate, The (Baton Rouge, LA) It took six jurors less than an hour Wednesday night to find a Harvey man guilty of bilking a woman with Alzheimer’s disease out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, leaving her to die with nothing to her name. Paul Juarez, 72, was convicted on one count of exploitation of a person with infirmities for assuming legal control of the finances of Marjorie Blake, of Terrytown, and spending more than $800,000 of her money on dubious expenses over a six-year period, Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick’s Office said. Blake, a retired nurse and divorcée from North Carolina who had no children, died in March 2014 at age 85. “She died penniless and alone,” Assistant District Attorney Lynn Schiffman, who prosecuted Juarez with Assistant District Attorney Johnny Carr, told jurors. Juarez knew Blake through their West Bank church. After Blake was medically deemed unable to make decisions for herself due to Alzheimer’s in 2008, Juarez assumed power of attorney for her, Connick’s office said. Testimony showed that in 2010 Juarez transferred more than $300,000 from Blake’s bank to his own without explanation, and he also made himself and his wife the exclusive beneficiaries to Blake’s...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Workers have new options to customize their financial protection benefits, thanks to an enhanced term life insurance plan introduced today by Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company. Key additional options for Colonial Life’s individual term life coverage include: A new 15-year benefit period; Living benefit options through two new riders: chronic care and critical illness; and A new plan for high face amounts (more than $250,000) with gender-distinct rates. “Today’s consumers want their financial protection to fit their unique needs and situation,” said Pam Jenkins, assistant vice president for product and market development. “Consumers aren’t one-size-fits-all, and our products should reflect the need for flexibility.” Colonial Life’s term life policy now offers: Four plan options: 10-year, 15-year, 20-year and 30-year term; Face amounts ranging from $10,000 to unlimited, based on underwriting; Terminal illness accelerated death benefit included; Same coverage for employee and/or spouse; Tobacco-distinct/unisex rates for amounts up to $250,000; and Gender-distinct rates for amounts over $250,000, with preferred rating based on health; and Six optional riders: 10-year or 20-year spouse term rider, children’s term rider, accidental death benefit rider, chronic care accelerated death benefit rider, critical illness accelerated death benefit rider, and waiver of premium benefit...

Business Wire A FINRA arbitration panel has awarded $3.2 million to an Alleghany County egg-farming family swindled in a variable annuity (VA) and life insurance scheme promoted by a former AXA financial advisor who was recently convicted for stealing from another elderly AXA client. The Whitesville, NY, victims were represented in the arbitration proceeding by the Peiffer Wolf Carr & Kane law firm (PWCK). For more details about the case, go to www.brokerwatch.com/axa/upstate-ny. The award is believed to be the largest ever paid in upstate New York and also the largest imposed on AXA in arbitration. The elderly victims oversaw the successful Fitzpatrick Poultry Farm in Whitesville, NY, for many years before suffering millions of dollars in damages at the hands of AXA and its financial advisor, Francesco Puccio, formerly of Webster, NY. Puccio was affiliated with the AXA office in Rochester. At a news conference today, PWCK released a fact sheet showing a disturbing pattern of AXA problems throughout Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, and upstate New York. The PWCK fact sheet documents multiple complaints, settlements, regulatory actions and fines involving AXA and AXA brokers, including the victimization of 81-year-old Scottsville, NY, widow Shirley Kerwin, who lost her entire life savings...

The American College’s new president wants to see the school expand by breaking out of its insurance niche and focusing on financial services. The school is moving to a new headquarters with a president who has big plans for its future. He foresees the school doubling its current enrollment of 18,000 through building on its current offerings and growing broader relationships with others in the financial services and educational worlds. George Nichols began his tenure as The American College’s president and CEO on Nov. 1 after a 17-year career with New York Life. Nichols took the helm at the 92-year-old institution while it is in the midst of a move from its campus in Bryn Mawr, Pa., to office space in the nearby Philadelphia suburb of King of Prussia. The move is expected to be completed in mid-May. This change comes as The American College continues to deliver most of its programs online, no longer needing the 35-acre campus – a former country estate – that has been its home since 1961. The campus was sold to the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in 2007, but the college continued to have its base of operations onsite at MDRT Foundation Hall,...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The public defenders representing the former student charged with the Florida high school massacre are set to ask a judge to remove them from the case. The Broward County Public Defender’s Office will ask Judge Elizabeth Scherer on Wednesday to order Nikolas Cruz to hire a private attorney with the $432,000 he may receive from his late mother’s life insurance policy. The office made the surprise announcement last week. Prosecutors oppose such a move, saying any money likely will go through lawsuits to Cruz’s surviving victims and the families of those killed. Cruz is charged with killing 17 and wounding 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018. He’s pleaded not guilty but his attorneys said he would plead guilty for a life sentence. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The post State: Force Florida School Shooter To Use Life Insurance Proceeds To Hire Attorney appeared first on InsuranceNewsNet.

Austin American-Statesman (TX) Travis County prosecutors will not make plea offers to the three men charged in the slaying of Austin jeweler Ted Shaughnessy last year. After reviewing evidence against Shaughnessy’s son, Nicolas, and two other men charged in the case, District Attorney Margaret Moore said her office will not negotiate with the lawyers representing the defendants and plan to present the cases at trial. No trial dates have been set, and it’s unlikely the cases will be tried this year. “We have no intention of reaching a deal,” Moore said Tuesday. “We do intend to try them for capital murder.” The decision by Moore’s office to not extend a plea deal is relatively uncommon and is an action reserved for heinous killings or cases in which prosecutors believe the evidence points squarely to a conviction. Moore also said her office will not seek the death penalty for any of the men. Instead, prosecutors will pursue life sentences without parole, the other option available to prosecutors in capital murder cases. “We’re pleased to hear the news that the state will not be seeking the death penalty,” Shaughnessy’s lawyer Rick Flores said. “We’re fortunate to have an even-handed district attorney who...

About 10 years ago, Roland Chan was managing a large team of financial advisors and insurance agents when tragedy struck and one of his staff suddenly died. The late agent had not put in place a continuity or succession plan and it took Chan a year to have any of the value transferred to his estate. Sadly, by that time 50% of his assets had been eroded because clients had left after realising the lack of plan or other agents and advisors had moved in and poached them. The death had a “cascading effect”. Not only did Chan’s firm, carriers and product manufacturer lose assets but the agent lost the value of his life’s work, and had left both his family and clients in the lurch. From these sad events came a lightbulb moment for Chan. By the end of 2014 he had founded FindBob, an enterprise platform that helps encourage better transition behaviour and planning within both the insurance and financial services industry. He explained: “Consumers who engaged with him for either financial or risk advice, they didn’t do it for the duration of his life but for the duration of theirs.” The FindBob closed market place network helps...

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