United Heritage President & CEO Johnson to Speak at Annual Meeting

Dennis Johnson, President and Chief Executive Officer of United Heritage Life Insurance Company and its parent company, United Heritage Financial Group, will speak at NOLHGA's 25th Annual Meeting in October. The meeting will be held at the Four Seasons Resort Jackson Hole in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Johnson is currently scheduled to speak on the afternoon of October 7.

Johnson joined United Heritage Financial Group, which owns two regional property and casualty companies, as General Counsel in 1983 and has served as CEO since 1999. His speech is expected to deal with market and regulatory changes from the small company perspective.

NOLHGA's 2008 Annual Meeting will be held October 7 and 8, with an MPC meeting on October 6. More information on the meeting will appear in the NOLHGA Wire and other NOLHGA publications in the coming weeks. A Web page with general information about the meeting can be found here.

NOLHGA's Legal Seminar Web Page Now Available

The meeting Web page for NOLHGA's 16th Annual Legal Seminar is now available. The seminar will be held at the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston on July 17-18, 2008, and the program offers guaranty association administrators and board members in-depth analyses of public policy issues facing the guaranty system and insurance industry as well as fundamental education about guaranty association operations. A Welcome Reception at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on July 16 will kick off the event.

The meeting Web page offers a preliminary agenda, online registration, hotel information, and other meeting details. A special room rate of $219/night is available at the Fairmont Copley Plaza for the entire week and weekend (a few smaller single rooms are available at $209/night), and reservations can be made online or by calling 617.267.5300.

The Legal Seminar will be preceded by a NOLHGA MPC meeting on July 15 and 16. Information about this meeting will also be featured on the meeting Web page in the next few weeks.

If you have any trouble accessing the meeting Web page, please contact Dan Hicks. Questions concerning the Legal Seminar meeting should be directed to Meg Melusen.

Plaintiffs Appeal Nebraska Viaticals Case

On May 9, 2008, plaintiffs in the case of Harvey v. Nebraska Life & Health Insurance Guaranty Association filed a notice of appeal seeking relief from the Lancaster County District Court's ruling in favor of the Nebraska association.

The case involved a group of plaintiffs seeking guaranty association coverage for viatical settlements purchased from a now-defunct broker known as Future First Financial Group. On April 16, the district court granted the guaranty association's motion for summary judgment, rejecting the plaintiffs' coverage demands based on Nebraska's statutory exclusion for "any portion of any policy or contract not guaranteed by the insurer or under which the risk is borne by the policy or contract holder."

Although the court's final ruling focused on the statutory exclusion, earlier rulings from the court support the plaintiffs' argument that Future First was a "member insurer" and that its viatical settlements could be covered by the guaranty association as "supplemental contracts" to direct non-group life policies--despite the undisputed fact that Future First was not and never had been an insurance company, that it was never licensed in Nebraska, and that it never transacted in any of the lines of insurance recognized by Nebraska's insurance code.

The appeal will be filed with the Nebraska Court of Appeals. Briefing will occur over the next six months, and oral argument is anticipated in late 2009. The unpublished district court opinion is available from Meg Melusen at NOLHGA.