Securing Full Insurance Policy Dividends

Adkins, Kelston & Zavez, P.C. works to ensure that insurance companies pay the full amount of policy dividends owed to their policyholders.

States such as Massachusetts and Pennsylvania require life insurers to pay out all excess profits above a defined amount to policyholders as policy dividends. And insurers that don’t pay these dividends retain profits that rightfully belong to their policyholders. We have successfully brought class action lawsuits against such insurers to recover the dividend underpayments. We can also help determine if you are owed dividends for other reasons.

• In Goldstein v. Savings Bank Life Ins. Co., we certified a contested class of 400,000 policyholders and after extensive motion practice and discovery successfully settled the matter for a recovery valued at $21.5 million for an alleged underpayment of policy dividends in violation of Massachusetts law.
• Bacchi v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, this was a heavily litigated class action that settled for $37.5 million in 2017.  In this matter, Plaintiff had contended that MassMutual retained profits that it was required to distribute as dividends to its participating policyholders.
• Harshbarger v. Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, this was also heavily litigated, resulting in a class-wide settlement of $123 million for the alleged profits that Penn Mutual was required to distribute as dividends to its participating policyholders but had failed to do. Pursuant to the order approving the settlement, the distribution of settlement funds continues as policies in the class mature.