Coventry Sues Over Mortality Projections

Coventry, a Fort Washington, Pa., company that has been active in the viatical and life settlement markets, has filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia that accuses Examination Management Services Inc., Waco, Texas, of making unrealistic life expectancy projections using nonstandard methods. Investors who buy life policies through the competitors that use the projections will suffer significant losses, according to Alan Buerger, Coventrys CEO.

We would, of course, deny those claims, says Anthony Falisi, Examination Managements attorney.

Examination Management has been providing life expectancy evaluations for only a few years, and that service makes up less than 1% of its total business, Falisi says.

Because EMSI only has been offering this service for a couple of years, theres insufficient data regarding the number of actual deaths to assess the accuracy of EMSIs evaluations, Falisi says. But, he adds that EMSIs life expectancy evaluation standards are reviewed regularly by independent entities and that those standards are consistent with the standards used throughout the industry.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, May 21, 2004. Copyright 2004 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.