American Medical Security, Inc. v. Executive Risk Specialty Insurance

393 F. Supp. 2d 693, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23456, 2005 WL 2449691
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedSeptember 30, 2005
Docket02 C 1205
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 393 F. Supp. 2d 693 (American Medical Security, Inc. v. Executive Risk Specialty Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Medical Security, Inc. v. Executive Risk Specialty Insurance, 393 F. Supp. 2d 693, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23456, 2005 WL 2449691 (E.D. Wis. 2005).

Opinion

DECISION AND ORDER

GRIESBACH, District Judge.

Plaintiffs American Medical Security, Inc., and United Wisconsin Life Insurance Company (collectively “AMS”) filed this action against Executive Risk Specialty Insurance Company in Brown County Circuit Court, on November 7, 2002. AMS sought monetary damages for breach of contract and a declaratory judgment that Executive Risk had violated the terms of an insurance policy issued to AMS by failing to pay AMS’ legal costs and refusing to pay damages AMS had incurred in a Florida case. Executive Risk removed the case to this court, alleging diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1382. Thereafter AMS amended its complaint to include similar allegations with respect to thirty-eight other cases in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Wisconsin. Executive Risk filed a counterclaim against AMS seeking reimbursement of defense expenses it advanced to AMS in the Florida case and a declaration that neither defense nor indemnity coverage existed in any of the other cases. Currently before the court are the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment. For the reasons stated herein, each motion will be granted in part and denied in part.

BACKGROUND

AMS underwrites, markets and administers health insurance in various states throughout the country. (Pis.’ PFOF [74] ¶ 1-3.) On September 25, 1998, AMS purchased a Managed Care Errors and Omissions Liability Policy from Executive Risk. (Pis.’ PFOF [74] ¶ 3). AMS later purchased three more policies, the last of which expired on December 21, 2002. (Pis.’ PFOF [74] ¶¶ 4-6; Def.’s PFOF [70] ¶¶ 5-8.) The policies were claims-made policies, meaning that they provided coverage for claims made against AMS within their policy periods, even if the wrongful acts that gave rise to the claims occurred before the policies’ inception date. (Def.’s PFOF [70] ¶ 9.) The policies permitted AMS to retain its own defense counsel in the event of a claim and obligated Executive Risk to reimburse AMS’ defense costs on a current basis. (Pis.’ PFOF [74] ¶ 4; Def.’s PFOF [70] ¶¶ 10,14-15.)

On February 10, 2000, certain current and former insureds of AMS filed a class-action suit (“Addison”) against AMS in the Palm Beach County (Florida) Circuit Court. (Borja Deck, [69] Ex. 9A.) The Addison plaintiffs alleged that they had purchased group health insurance policies from AMS, but that AMS had cancelled their policies on their 1999 renewal dates and had offered them inferior coverage with sharply higher premiums thereafter. 1 (Id.) More specifically, the plaintiffs alleged:

In furtherance of an on-going, established policy and practice designed to maximize profits by eliminating or increasing premiums to customers who required substantial health care after they became AMS subscribers, AMS decided *698 in 1998 to cancel many of the group plans it had previously provided — and which were guaranteed to be renewed at the option of the subscriber — and to force subscribers with poor medical histories to take an alternative plan with substantially higher premiums. In effect, AMS took one pool of subscribers who had been sold a particular form of insurance as part of a group plan and then split the group into new pools base on their individual health status. The primary goal of this tactic was to force these insured[s] with poor medical histories to drop their coverage or, at least, to pay substantially more for a less beneficial policy. Because many of the affected subscribers had become uninsura-ble as a result of their medical histories, they had no choice but to accept the extortionate premiums offered by AMS or to go without insurance at all.

(Id. ¶ 2.) The class representatives sought damages for breach of contract, violation of the Florida Consumer Protection Act, and fraud, as well as equitable remedies and a declaration that AMS had violated Florida law by basing premium increases on their individual claims histories and by providing improper notification of conversion rights, issuance of conversion policies, and computation of premiums. (Id.)

On May 22, 2000, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint. (Borja Deck, [69] Ex. 9B.) The amended complaint alleged that the plaintiffs had purchased group health insurance policies from AMS, and that throughout the life of those policies, AMS had “individually re-underwrit[ten] each insured on the basis of claim experience/health status.” (Id. at 10089.) The amended complaint also repeated in summary form the allegations of the original complaint. (Id. at 10084-5.) The amended complaint sought only contractual damages and equitable relief. (Id. at 10087-94.) Specifically, the plaintiffs contended that their group health insurance policies incorporated certain Florida statutes, that the policies did not comply with those statutes, and that the noncompliance amounted to a breach of contract by AMS. (Id.)

On April 24, 2002, following a bench trial, the Addison court entered a final judgment against AMS on the issue of liability. (Def.’s PFOF [70] ¶33.) The court found that AMS had violated Fla. Stat. § 627.65625, “which prohibits discrimination against individual participants and beneficiaries based on health status,” 2 as well as other Florida statutes. (Borja Deck, [69] Ex. 13 at 10438.) In a thirty-seven page written decision, much of which was devoted to the question of whether the policies sold by AMS were exempt from the relevant provisions of the Florida Insurance Code as out-of-state group health insurance policies, the Florida court found that AMS had “engaged in annual re-underwriting ‘tier rating’ in 1993 through 1997 and from 1999 until the present *699 time.” 3 {Id. at 10423.) The court noted that under this system, individual insureds were re-underwritten each year, with those who developed medical problems placed in substandard tiers where their premiums were raised as much as sixty percent according to some witnesses, while those who had not made any claims had no premium increase or at most a five percent increase. Such a practice, the court noted, “defies the very purpose of group health insurance,” which is to “spread and share the risk among a group of insureds.” {Id. at 10422-23.) Not only did the Florida court conclude that this practice violated Florida law, it also found that in 1996 the Florida Department of Insurance (DOI) had disapproved a proposed rate filing by AMS under which it intended to base renewal premiums for individual members on that member’s “health risk assessment” and ordered it to “cease and desist from such conduct.” {Id. at 10416; Borja Deck, [69] Ex. 88.)

AMS notified Executive Risk of the Addison claims in October 2000. (Pis.’ PFOF [74] ¶ 8.) By letters dated June 5, 2001, December 26, 2001, and February 28, 2002, Executive Risk reserved its rights under the policies.

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393 F. Supp. 2d 693, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23456, 2005 WL 2449691, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-medical-security-inc-v-executive-risk-specialty-insurance-wied-2005.