Minnestota
Minnesota state officials have suspended the producer license of Michael Antonello for helping a man obtain $127.7 million in life insurance.
State officials charged Antonello with insurance fraud and forgery.
The case involves John Paulson of Minnesota, who was the defendant in a lawsuit decided last year that may have provided an important victory to the life settlement industry on the issue of insurable interest.
Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada had sued Paulson and others, including Antonello, seeking to rescind $17 million worth of life insurance. But a federal court judge in Minnesota threw out the case in December, upholding a magistrate judge’s decision.
The decision found that just because an insured plans to sell his policies when he bought them that it doesn’t necessarily mean that they lacked insurable interest, according to settlement industry representatives.
In the latest action by the Minnesota Department of Commerce, the state said that Antonello helped Paulson buy 44 policies from October 1999 through December 2004 worth a total of $127.7 million.