Law firm launches national practice targeting IUL lawsuits

Robert G. Rikard crisscrossed the country for years, taking life insurers to court over indexed universal life products that his plaintiffs say did not perform as advertised.

Rikard and his legal partner, Peter Protopapas, finally decided to make IUL litigation the focus of their Columbia, S.C. firm. The duo recently launched a rebranded RP Legal LLC, a firm dedicated to IUL litigation.

“We realized that what we thought was a blip in the system and some pockets of bad actors is, unfortunately, the norm, it seems,” Rikard told InsuranceNewsNet. “We just get calls every single day about people’s financial lives being turned upside down by horrible misrepresentations about this product.”

Indexed universal life is a type of permanent life insurance that combines lifelong death benefit protection with a cash value account whose growth is tied to a stock market index. The product abuses include unrealistic returns and premium financing schemes that leave policyholders financially poorer.

“The common denominator is that the sales force out there does not understand the product at all, and how the economics of the product actually perform in real-world situations,” Rikard explained. “I think that the vast majority of people selling IUL are trained how to sell it, but not trained how to understand the mechanics of the design in a way that it will not lapse.”

Starting in 2018, Rikard has represented more than 400 clients, including retirees, families, business owners, and professionals, and recovered tens of millions of dollars from insurers and financial firms that marketed IUL policies as "tax-free retirement" or investment plans.

IUL-fueled Ponzi scheme

In one example, Rikard represented several clients in different states who invested in a complex scheme that included a “structured settlement” offered by Future Income Payments. FIP turned out to be a nationwide Ponzi scheme that earned founder Scott Kohn a 10-year prison sentence.

Using various marketing efforts, FIP solicited pensioners by offering them a lump sum in exchange for a portion of their future pension payments. Unknown to many investors, the future pension payment terms required them to pay what often equated to an annual interest rate exceeding 100% over a five-year term.

In time, another layer was added to the scam, prosecutors said. Investors were urged to fund IUL policies with their FIP payment, ostensibly to replace the pension as a retirement plan. However, prosecutors said the new layer just created another opportunity for rogue agents and FIP reps to further gouge investors via hidden and high fees.

IUL-fueled scams continue to evolve, Rikard said, with enticing TikTok videos and multi-level marketing efforts among the current problems. MLM involves promoters who use a pyramid-style sales structure to sell legitimate or pseudo–life insurance products in deceptive or exploitative ways.

“I think the carriers know this is going on, at least what I'm hearing in multi-level marketing space,” Rikard said. “They just look the other way because I think it's [they see it as] just the cost of doing business.”

RP Legal plans to add teams of lawyers, analysts and paralegals over the coming months, Rikard said. The firm will pursue cases big and small across the country and expects to find plenty of business, he added.

“Until the carriers worry more about the mechanics of performance of the policy versus just selling the product, I think we're going to see more and more litigation,” Rikard said.

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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 john.hilton@innfeedback.com. Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.