$6,500,000 Verdict in St. Clair County

Dear   NONE,

A St. Clair County jury returned a verdict of $6,500,000 in an insurance fraud case today.  The case was tried by David Marsh and Mike Beard of Marsh, Rickard & Bryan.

The case centered on two large life insurance policies sold by the company AmerUs in 1987.  Both policies were key-man insurance policies issued on the life of Bobby Ray Smith.  The plaintiff presented evidence at trial that during the course of selling these life insurance policies, AmerUs made misrepresentations and suppressed material facts regarding the premiums necessary to keep the policies in force.  Specifically, AmerUs and its agents used projections and illustration statements to falsely represent that the premiums on those key-man policies would remain "level" during the 42-year period during which the premiums were due.  The plaintiff argued that AmerUs knew that the premiums would eventually be raised.

According to David, evidence critical to the case came from a former AmerUs agent.  The former agent testified that the illustrations used in 1987 for these type of insurance policies were often misleading.  As a result, the average policyholder would not be able to look at the illustrations and determine if the agent had been truthful about the premiums.

The jury awarded the plaintiff 2.5 million dollars in compensatory damages and 4 million dollars in punitive damages.