In a dispute over a long-term care insurance contract, a court rejected the plaintiff’s allegation that five defendants “are an association of entities acting together for the purpose of providing long term care insurance under the name Ability Insurance and also act as the alter egos and/or agents of each other.” The defendants are Ability Reinsurance Holdings (a Bermuda-based holding company) and 4 subsidiaries, including Ability Resources Holdings, Ability Insurance (U.S. insurer), Ability Reinsurance (Bermuda-based captive reinsurer) and Ability Resources, Inc. The court granted a motion for judgment on the pleadings in favor of the Bermuda-based holding company, the Bermuda-based captive reinsurer, and Ability Resources Holdings for lack of personal jurisdiction based on the determination that they do not act as an alter ego for Ability Insurance. The court held that while regulators permitted Ability Insurance to purchase reinsurance from a member of the same corporate family, that fact “does not render the contractual relationship a ‘sham’ or otherwise make Ability Reinsurance (Bermuda) susceptible to suit in Iowa.” The court also dismissed the claims against Ability Resources, Inc., holding that simply alleging that Ability Resources is the alter ego of Ability Insurance, “without more,” failed to satisfy federal pleading requirements. Schultz v. Ability Insurance Co., Case No. 2:11-cv-01020-JSS (USDC N.D. Iowa Oct. 9, 2012).
This post written by Abigail Kortz.
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