Crown Life

  • Some background information about my company is necessary in order to understand our approach.
    • Crown Life actively markets insurance in nine different countries.
    • I. We believe that we are a marketing organization rather than a planning organization.

--  Michael B. Hutchison, Crown Life

1977 - SOA - Marketing Strategy and Planning, Society of Actuaries - 14p 

  • 1998 - LC - Crown Life v Casteel - Brief of Amicus Curiae - ACLI - Supreme Court of Texas - 98-0218 - 18p 
  • 1998 - LC - Crown Life v Casteel - Brief of Amicus Curiae - TALU (Texas Association of Life Underwriters) - Supreme Court of Texas - 98-0218 - 21p 
  • 1999 - Overlawyered.com - overlawyered.com/archives/99aug1.html  
    • August 3 -- All have lost, and all must have damages. From the July 20 Texas Lawyer comes this tale ("Strange Days Indeed", by Janet Elliott) of the state of personal responsibility in today's courts: Crown Life Insurance Co. of Canada was one of numerous insurance companies tarred by the "vanishing-premium" fiasco of the 1980s, in which a speculative form of insurance predicated on the continuation of high interest rates was pitched to unwary prospects but quickly lost its value when rates plunged instead. Litigation on behalf of 22,000 U.S. policyholders eventually resulted in a $27 million settlement. But a separate suit against Crown was wending its way forward in Texas courts, on behalf of William Casteel, one of its own salesmen who maintained that he, too, was a victim. Why? Because he'd sold so many of the policies in his local community that he became a local pariah when they blew up. His lawyer argued that Casteel "became suicidal and was treated for depression" after friends and fellow churchgoers, upset over his role in sweet-talking them into purchasing the policies, ostracized him. A Texas jury proceeded to order Crown to pay Casteel $36 million, a figure built up from $6 million in mental anguish and $1.5 million in lost income, subject to trebling under the state's consumer-fraud statute, prejudgment interest and attorneys' fees.
    • In other words, one of the salesmen who carried out the alleged deception was judged to deserve more from the parent company than all 22,000 victimized customers rolled together. The verdict did not last long, at least in its full $36 million plenitude: a district judge overrruled it on grounds Casteel had no standing to sue as a victimized insurance "consumer", an appeals court reinstated it but threw out its emotional-damage component, and the Texas Supreme Court last month ordered an entirely new trial. Much to the frustration of the defendants, however, it left intact the new right of Lone Star State insurance agents to sue for "deceptive practices" they themselves helped implement.
  • 1996 - LC - In Re: Crown Life Ins Co v. Walls, et al
    • MDL - 7:96-md-01096
    • Sim Lake, presiding
    • Date filed: 06/07/1996 Date terminated: 07/10/2003, Date of last filing: 10/02/2003
  • 1996 - LC - Cantu Stafford, et al v. Crown Life Insurance
    • 7:96-cv-00271
    • Sim Lake, presiding
    • Date filed: 11/13/1996, Date terminated: 01/07/1998
  • 1998 - LC - Crown Life Ins Co v. Gomez, et al
    • 5:98-cv-00023
    • George P. Kazen, presiding, Marcel C. Notzon, referral
    • Date filed: 03/11/1998, Date terminated: 03/03/2000, Date of last filing: 05/16/2008
  • 2001 - LC - McCorvey v Crown Life  Alabama
    • 2:01-cv-00830-MHT-CSC
    • Alabama
    • On Pacer