Miscellaneous

N.M. high court to review insurance-installment class settlement

By Walter Olson, Ted Frank, and David Nieporent

New Mexico in recent years has been the scene of a little cottage industry in class-action settlements over insurance companies' allegedly inadequate disclosure of charges on installment payments. Settlements often involve pledges to inform consumers more fully, modest coupons, and impressively large legal fees to the circle of law firms that file the cases. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, nearly every large insurer selling life and disability coverage has been hit with a New Mexico class action in the past decade. Now, for the first time, the state high court is set to review one such settlement, in a case against First Colony/Genworth. The "settlements have not been free of controversy, with even some policyholder-plaintiffs describing the lawsuits as frivolous and the attorney fees as excessive"; cumulatively they have brought the class counsel more than $41 million in fees. (Thomas J. Cole, "New Mexico's Supreme Court to Review Award of $6.5 Million in Attorney Fees in Suits Against Insurer", Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 14 courtesy NM Legal Reform; earlier).

Full post as published by Overlawyered on March 20, 2008 (boomark / email).