Kyle Busch attorney rips ‘false narrative’ around life insurance coverage

An attorney for the late racing legend Kyle Busch claims critics are pushing a "false narrative" about the driver's life insurance coverage. The dispute stems from the Busches' highly publicized lawsuit over a controversial indexed universal life strategy.

Busch, 41, died last week after a brief battle with pneumonia. The shocking death did not leave the family lacking proper life insurance coverage, said attorney Robert Rikard, despite walking away from five high-dollar IUL policies.

Two of the policies had no value prior to the litigation and were terminated, Rikard said.

The Busch family retained an independent insurance specialist, a senior executive at a major national financial institution, who evaluated the entire portfolio and recommended a structured transition to replacement coverage that provides "a substantial lifetime death benefit," Rikard wrote in a LinkedIn post.

"The Busch family did not walk away from their coverage," he added. "They replaced it with better coverage."

Rikard has become a pariah within life insurance circles for his aggressive pursuit and litigation of IUL cases. Within hours of Busch's death, critics took to LinkedIn to accuse Rikard of giving the racer bad advice, assuming the lapsation of several IUL policies cost Busch's heirs tens of millions of dollars in death benefits.

Many of those posts were made on the page of popular industry influencer Sheryl Moore, CEO of Wink Inc. and Moore Market Intelligence. Several of the more incendiary posts were deleted by Tuesday.

Moore attempted to referee discussions by focusing on the tragedy and the lack of full information. She repeated those thoughts on Tuesday.

"I am certain that Samantha Busch has her finances in order, and has life insurance outside of the IULs that were cash surrendered with a certain insurance company that she and Kyle recently sued," she said via email. "That said, life insurance for those with risky occupations are associated with higher premiums, flat-extra charges and often declines for coverage."

Millions in premiums paid

Kyle and Samantha Busch sued Pacific Life Insurance Co. in October, claiming they lost more than $8.5 million after being misled into purchasing life insurance policies. They claim they paid more than $10.4 million in premiums based on misleading illustrations and false promises of guaranteed returns.

The Busches reached an out-of-court settlement with PacLife, according to a Feb. 26 court filing. Terms were confidential.

The filing in the Western District of North Carolina alleged the Busches purchased five separate IUL policies between 2018 and 2022 to provide more than $90 million in insurance protection for the two-time NASCAR champion.

Bobby Samuelson is a longtime life insurance executive and consultant, and executive editor of the Life Product Review, a subscription site providing product intelligence. He wrote in-depth columns about the Busch case from the beginning.

The Busches were well advised, he said.

“The Pacific Life policies referenced in the lawsuit lapsed well before the litigation began," Samuelson wrote in his own LinkedIn comment. "His remaining policies had already been exchanged for more suitable coverage, specifically to provide adequate death benefit.”

'An excuse to take shots' at IUL

Indexed universal life insurance now represents about 25% of life insurance sales, and the product is rapidly increasing in popularity. Despite the black eye of litigation, many advisors say an IUL product is a good and responsible financial fit in many different situations.

In its motion to dismiss, PacLife noted that the Busches signed policy illustrations indicating they intended to pay planned premiums and hold the policies over 30 years. Instead, the couple bailed out on the plan and surrendered the policies before their growth potential could be realized, attorneys for the insurer said.

Roccy DeFrancesco founded The Wealth Preservation Institute, an educational and credentialing organization for financial, insurance, and legal professionals. He told InsuranceNewsNet that IUL is unfairly under attack.

“Many in the industry have used the Busch lawsuit as an excuse to take shots at using IUL as a retirement asset class," he said. "This was too predictable and shows the ignorance of those making the comments. IUL, when designed and funded properly, is a viable asset class that consumers should consider as one of the tools they use to build wealth for retirement.”

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InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.