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Phoenix Home Life Insurance Company

Stephen of Sicklerville NJ (9/20/02):
Phoenix Insurance settled a class action suit regarding deceptive sales practices of life insurance products from around 1982. About the same time my agent switched my Paul Revere Disability policy (at the time Paul Revere was # 1 company for excellent disability products) to a Phoenix Policy. There was absolutely no reason to do this as it would have been much more beneficial to me to increase my current Revere policy.

At the time this agent who was also very friendly with me knew that my physical and mental health was not the best. To make a long story short about 6 months went by and I needed my disability policy, which of course was useless because of a pre-existing clause. My Paul Revere policy would have not had the same condition because of my tenure with company.

I retained a lawyer maintaining that this Phoenix policy was sold to me fraudulently—ostensibly to earn a bigger commission. We went through the deposition phase. Unfortunately my lawyer was more interested in his next job and I was not given his full and professional attention. In addition I was too weak physically and mentally to fight. My point is that in a corporation like Phoenix sales practices are not relegated to one specific product. This new information regarding their deceptive sales practices, which I knew was correct when I first tried to sue, has definitely convinced me that I was correct at the time.

One lawyer said that the statue of limitations has run out…however with this new information there must be a way to circumvent that. He did agree that a monetary award based upon my hardships, suffering etc. would be very, very substantial based on everything personally that happened to me in the subsequent years. He does not practice this type of law. He said that a knowledgeable attorney would see the merits that exists here and probably would know how to pursue the case. I feel Phoenix, my agent and my lawyer all share in this. The irony is because I had no money coming in and my stress from that afforded me no real means of a good recovery I was never in a position to fight this properly.

The most immediate consequence was that although I never was without disability insurance the fact that the change was made meant that when I become ill I did not have any money coming in. This caused me to lose my house, $70,000 in savings and suffer the emotional distress and financial distress of my bankruptcy. Even worse, I never had the opportunity to fully recover without the stress of worrying about bills and money. Even though I had thoughtfully planned by buying disability insurance at a young age, I was never able to buy another policy. The emotional distress all these years of feeling unprotected and unable to have a legal remedy is was (is) horrific.

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