Recently, rare national class action status was granted against Conseco Life Insurance on the grounds that the insurance company had a breach of contract with seven policy holders.   The policy holders will be represented by the Gilbert firm of Washington, D.C. and the Millstein & Associates firm of San Francisco.  The case was first filed in 2008 and was approved by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston on October 6.

According to Millstein, one of the lawyers representing the policyholders, “In many cases, when plaintiffs attempt to bring national class actions on consumer claims, defendants are able to defeat the class actions by arguing that there are significant variations among consumers or among the legal standards applicable in different states, but in our case the court found that Conseco treated all policyholders essentially the same way across the country and that there are no significant variations in state contract law."

Stephen Weisbrod, whose firm partners with the Gilbert law firm in Washington, D.C. and has experience as an insurance lawyer, said, "many other 'vanishing premium' life insurance cases have failed."

The claim states that Conseco was breaching approximately 10,000 “Lifetrend” insurance policies, and that they had contractual violations regarding improper charges and deductions.  Despite Conseco’s claim that the plaintiffs hadn’t analyzed state laws regarding the claims, in accordance with the court order.  This claim, however, was denied.

According to the judge, “"Contrary to Conseco's representations, several courts have recognized that the law relating to the element of breach does not vary greatly from state to state."  Because the claims are similar in multiple states, the case received national class action suit status.