Investigating Life Insurance "Cost of Insurance" Rate Increases and Overcharges

Did you receive a notification letter from your insurance provider informing you of significant premium increases to maintain your policy? 

Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP and Schirger Feierabend LLC advocate for policy owners nationwide, prosecuting claims against life insurance companies for improper “Cost of Insurance” (COI) rate increases and overcharges in connection with policies that contain an investment, interest bearing, or savings component in addition to a death benefit.

If you believe you are being overcharged by your life insurance company, please contact our team by filling out the form below. We will review your policy and related documents free of charge and free of any commitment whatsoever.

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Life Insurance: "Cost of Insurance" Rate Increases and Overcharges

Our law firms investigate and pursue claims against life insurance companies for alleged misconduct related to rate increases and overcharges within permanent life insurance policies. These types of policies can be referred to in several ways:

• Universal Life Insurance
• Flexible Premium Whole Life Insurance
• Variable Universal Life Insurance
• Variable Whole Life Insurance

These policies typically restrict insurance companies from increasing cost of insurance rates unless the mortality expectations of the company have worsened. For most companies, the mortality expectations have improved over the last several decades and thus your rates should be lowered rather than increased.

In addition, these companies may be inflating your current COI rates with hidden expenses – or “loads” – buried within the contractual policy charges. These rate increases and overcharges cost you, the policy owner, significant money each month and year and drain your policy’s cash value.

Simply put: Money that should go to the policy owner’s savings is instead going to the insurance company.

We believe it’s wrong for companies that market financial security to take advantage of consumers’ hard-earned savings, and we’re holding them accountable. Our firm is prosecuting several lawsuits on behalf of policyholders alleging that insurance companies do not follow the terms of their policies when increasing cost of insurance and when inflating cost of insurance rates with undisclosed and unauthorized expenses.

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How do I know if I have one of these policies?  

These policies typically have a separately identified charge called a “Cost of Insurance” charge or “Mortality” charge.  These charges are typically identified in the annual policyholder report submitted at the end of the year.  In addition, you might find a description of these charges in the Policy itself.  If your policy contains such a charge, your insurer may be overcharging you.

In addition, if you received a letter announcing that your “Cost of Insurance” rate or “Mortality” rate will be increasing, these increases may violate the terms of your policy.

These improper rate increases and overcharges for Cost of Insurance can be several thousand dollars, depending on the amount of insurance you own and the length of time you have held the policies. We would like to hear from you if you have these types of policies.

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WHAT YOU CAN DO

For almost a decade, our firms have been advancing and resolving claims on behalf of consumers who own “permanent life insurance,” sometimes known as universal, variable universal, whole life, variable whole life or flexible premium policies. 

If you received a notification letter from your insurance provider informing you of significant premium increases to maintain your policy, or believe you are being overcharged by your life insurance company contact our team today by submitting a form or calling 888-816-2108. We will review your policy and related documents free of charge and free of any commitment whatsoever. 

Learn more from an insurance industry expert about the issue of these alleged cost of insurance overcharges; and read about our experience in Super Lawyers Magazine.