Other Insurance Fraud Cases

The term "Insurance Fraud" often brings to mind the insurance claimant who manufactures or fakes an injury in order to bilk an insurance company. However, in the context of "Mass" and "Class" legal actions, it is the insurance company that is accused of committing the fraud and bilking the insured, not the other way around.

One area that has been ripe for mass legal action is what is known as the "Vanishing Premium" case. These cases involve customers being falsely told that if they make their premium payments for a certain amount of time (for example, 10 years) they never have to make any other premium payments and the policies will pay for themselves at that point, or that premiums on universal life policies are "fixed", when in fact the premiums will require increases in order to maintain the policy in later years.

May major companies have been involved in legal wranglings over these types of allegations.

Race-based Premium Discrimination

Another area ripe for mass legal action involves the sale of race-based insurance premiums. During the 1930’s through the 1970’s, several insurance companies engaged in the shameful practice of charging "race-based insurance premiums" on so-called "burial policies" and/or "industrial life policies". This reprehensible practice involved a national scheme to unlawfully charge African Americans higher insurance premiums based solely on the color of their skin.