A federal appeals court has revived a long-running legal battle over three universal life insurance policies from AXA Equitable Life Insurance Co. that lapsed in 2013.
Malcolm Wiener — an 89-year-old lawyer, Aegean historian and founder of the Millburn Corp., a financial planning firm — bought the policies, which originally provided $16 million in death benefits, from AXA Equitable in 1987.
Wiener has argued that he received inadequate lapse notices, bad advice from an advisor about how to keep the policies in force, and unfair treatment from AXA Equitable when he applied to have the policies reinstated.
A three-judge panel at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that a federal district court in New York was right to award summary judgment to AXA Equitable over the policy terminations. But the panel found that Wiener had presented "a genuine issue of material fact as to the actual reasons" underlying the reinstatement denials and whether those reasons were arbitrary.
The panel vacated the district court's summary judgment over the reinstatement claims and sent Wiener's reinstatement claims back to the district court for further proceedings.
AXA Equitable was part of AXA, a French financial services company, when Wiener bought the universal life policies and when AXA Equitable terminated the policies. Since then, AXA Equitable has separated from AXA and become part of Equitable Holdings, a stand-alone financial services company based in New York.
Equitable declined to comment on pending litigation.
AXA did not respond to a request for comment.
Wiener's attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
Malcolm Wiener
Malcolm Wiener was born in Qingdao, China, in 1935. He received a Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps scholarship to study at Harvard, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics.
He later served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. He then earned a law degree from Harvard.
In addition to starting the Millburn Corp., he started the Millburn Ridgefield Corp., an asset manager.
He has studied the archaeology of Greek societies and other societies in the regions around the Aegean Sea, and he lectured on that topic at Yale.
He also has funded the start of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at Harvard's Harvard Kennedy School.
The Policies
The policies involved in the litigation were flexible-premium adjustable life policies, according to exhibits included with an amended version of Wiener's complaint.
The issue age for each policy was 51. The policy beneficiary was Wiener's wife.
The owner was a defined benefit plan trust.
The initial semiannual premium payment was $96,782.50 for a policy with $7.2 million in death benefits issued in February 1987, $96,782.50 for a policy with $7.2 million in death benefits issued in April 1987 and $21,776 for a policy with $1.6 million in death benefits issued in April 1987.
AXA Equitable warns on the policy information summary sheets that "the premium payments shown above may not be sufficient to continue the policy and life insurance coverage in force to the final policy date." The final policy date is the policy anniversary nearest the insured person's 95th birthday.
