Florida/Georgia Personal Injury & Workers Compensation

...These clauses grant the insurers a two-year window of 1 The FVSA provides a cause of action against any person who knowingly enters into a viatical settlement for a policy that was obtained through material misrepresentations or omissions. Fla. Stat. § 626.99275(1)(a)....

...10 enterprise; and 5) the policies that the receivership entities acquired in this manner were void ab initio.5 More specifically, insurers VFL, Reassure, Jefferson Pilot and AUL asserted that MBC violated the FVSA, Fla. Stat. § 626.99275(1)(a), when it entered into viatical settlement agreements with policyholders Mullins, Johnson, Metoyer and Buchner (counts I, VI, X, and XVI).6 Section 626.99275(1)(a) of the FVSA makes it unlawful for any person to “enter into, broker, or otherwise deal in a viatical settlement contract” for a life insurance policy, knowing that the policy was procured through fraud....

...The court’s decision turned on a plain reading of the statute, which made it unlawful to “knowingly enter into, broker or otherwise deal in” a viatical settlement contract for a life insurance policy that was procured through fraud. Fla. Stat. § 626.99275(1)(a). The insurers argued that the court should construe the term “otherwise deal in” to include transactions that occurred after the receivership entities purchased a given policy....

...Hooshmand, 931 F.2d 725,737 (11th Cir. 1991). ANALYSIS I. The FVSA Does Not Govern Transactions with Out-of-State Viators The FVSA regulates insurance and investments in insurance products within the State of Florida. Section 626.99275(1)(a) of the Act states that it is unlawful for any person: To knowingly enter into, broker, or otherwise deal in a viatical settlement contract the subject of which is a life insurance policy, knowing that the p...

...aterial to the policy or by concealing, for the purpose of misleading another, information concerning any fact material to the policy, where the viator or the viator’s agent intended to defraud the policy’s insurer. Fla. Stat. § 626.99275(1)(a) (2004)....

...29  Thus, a plain reading of this provision of the statute indicates that the FVSA does not govern MBC’s settlement contracts with any of these viators. Accordingly, we find that the insurers’ reliance upon section 626.99275(1)(a) of the statute is misplaced, and they are not entitled to relief under this statute....

...The district court did not provide a specific reason for dismissing this claim as it did with the other FVSA claims. 12 The district court ordered the insurers’ FVSA claims dismissed because it found that they were time-barred. The court based this conclusion on the language in Fla. Stat. § 626.99275(1)(a), which makes it unlawful for any person to knowingly “enter into, broker or otherwise deal in” a viatical for a life insurance policy that was procured through fraud....

...Co., 178 F.3d 1209, 1217 (11th Cir. 1999) (applying Florida law). Insurers VFL, Reassure, Jefferson Pilot and AUL allege that the receivership entities conspired to acquire fraudulently procured policies “in violation of the FVSA, Fla. Stat. § 626.99275(1)(a).” As we have already noted, however, the FVSA does not govern the receivership entities’ actions with respect to the policies named in these claims because they concern out-of-state viators....

...statute. Further, we find there is competent, substantial evidence to support that examination of both in-state and out-of-state records is necessary for OIR to determine whether out-of-state transactions are properly identified as such. Pursuant to section 626.99275(1)(d), Florida Statutes, "[i]t is unlawful for any person: ....