State high court to consider challenge to insurance law
Companies may be required to get in touch with beneficiaries
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court has agreed to hear a constitutional challenge to a 2016 state law that put new requirements on life-insurance companies to determine whether policyholders have died and to contact beneficiaries.
Four insurers went to the Supreme Court last year after a divided 1st District Court of Appeal upheld the law. The Supreme Court issued an order Monday saying it would take up the dispute, though it did not set a date for oral arguments.
The case centers on a law that requires insurers to search what is known as the “Death Master File” or another comparable database annually to determine whether policyholders have died. The Death Master File is a database run by the federal Social Security Administration.
The law applied the new requirements retroactively to policies dating back as far as 1992.
The four insurers — United Insurance Company of America, The Reliable Life Insurance Company, Mutual Savings Life Insurance Company and Reserve National Insurance Company — argue that retroactive application of the law violates their due-process rights. They did not challenge the requirements for new policies.
A panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal, in a 2-1 decision, upheld the law in June. That decision overturned a ruling by former Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, who had agreed with the insurers that the retroactive part of the law was unconstitutional.
The appeals court majority said the insurance industry’s “selective use” of the Death Master File in the past spawned investigations and lawsuits. Companies were accused of routinely using the Death Master File to identify people whose deaths would end annuity payments, while not as promptly identifying people whose deaths would require payouts of insurance policies.
But three insurance-industry groups argue that the additional requirements would hurt small and mid-sized life insurers.
“This is especially true regarding older policies issued before modern technology was available to store information required to complete the new search and contact requirements,” attorneys for the American Council of Life Insurers wrote. “Complying with the act’s requirements as applied to these older policies will be impracticable, if not impossible for many of (the council’s) members. Imposing the act retroactively will also increase costs. Increased costs means higher prices for consumers, rendering small value life insurance policies prohibitively expensive for many lower-income consumers.”