I reported previously that our firm, along with the New York law firm of Hanly, Conroy, had filed a case against AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company in Federal Court in the Southern District of New York for charging life insurance rates based on a "smoker" status to policies that insured children. AXA Equitable claimed that they had done nothing wrong in charging children premiums based on a smoker rate. The Federal Court was asked to dismiss our complaint.

Recently, the Court ruled on a number of legal issues, but ultimately ruled that AXA Equitable was not entitled to have the complaint filed against it dismissed. As a result, we can now move forward with the case. The plaintiffs' claim that AXA Equitable breached the contract of insurance with all the insureds who paid an inflated premium based on insurance rates charged to children under a "smoker status" will now move forward. United States District Judge Paul A. Crotty wrote in his order:

The policies state that the cost of insurance will be ‘based on sex, attained age, and rating class of the insured person' and that the application is part of the contract." The contract therefore clearly requires that the rating class on which the cost of insurance is based be consistent with the answers Plaintiff provided on the application. If the Defendant maintains ‘smoker' and ‘non-smoker' rating classes, it may not apply a ‘smoker' classification to Plaintiff's children for purposes of determining the cost and benefits under the policies when the application indicates that they are non-smokers.

We will now go forward with case preparation and will prove that the practice of charging children an inflated premium by assigning a "smoker rate" to their policy is a breach of contract and just plain wrong. We will do everything in our power to put a stop to this shameful practice and return to the policyholders the inflated premiums that AXA Equitable has charged on policies of insurance issued on the lives of children. A nation wide class action status will be sought for all policyholders who fall into this category. Our goal is for AXA Equitable to return all of the money and other benefits derived from the improperly charged premiums on policyholders as a result of this breach of the insurance agreement.

Dee Miles, Jay Aughtman and Jere Beasley will be involved from our firm along with Andrea Bierstein from the Hanly, Conroy firm in the handling of this case. We will continue to update you on significant developments as they occur.