Model, Stylist Sue Advisors Over Cash-Value Life Advice

The sales: Walton began seeking financial advice in 2020, when she was a 23-year-old single model with no mortgages, no debts and no dependents, according to the complaint.

She wanted to retire from the modeling business, and she wanted to have enough liquidity to buy homes for herself and her mother and to start a business.

She says that Lang and Blackwell sold her three policies from Guardian with $5 million in death benefits and $50,000 in annual premiums, then sold her three more policies from Guardian with $3 million in total benefits and $35,000 in annual premiums.

Walton referred Mukamal to Lang in April 2020 via email.

He was a 33-year-old man with no mortgages or other debts and no dependents, and he had earned about $175,000 over four years as a stylist. He told Lang and Blackwell that he wanted to generate liquidity to supplement his relatively modest income and that he had only a limited understanding of financial matters, according to the complaint.

Mukamal bought three policies from Guardian and a fourth policy from John Hancock.

One sign that the policies were unsuitable is that the sole beneficiary of his policies was his mother, a wealthy widow, the plaintiffs assert.

The plaintiffs assert that the advisors used deceptive tactics to present the policy sale recommendations.

“For example, although life insurance policies are accompanied by hundreds of pages in disclosures, the individual defendants would often send plaintiffs just the signature page, effectively concealing this significant information from plaintiffs or otherwise encouraging them not to read it,” according to the complaint.

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