Craig Merrill was retained over the past two years by approximately a dozen insurance company defendants to testify in separate California class action litigations related to consumer decision making and the economic reasons that policyholders elect to terminate life insurance.
Each litigation involved thousands of policyholders and large exposures for each insurance company defendant. Professor Merrill, with the help of his CRA support team, issued twelve expert reports across these cases. The analysis focused on the individual circumstances of thousands of insurance company policyholders.
One of these litigations was appealed to the 9th Circuit in the state of California. Professor Merrill’s opinion that the decision to terminate a life insurance policy is individual and cannot be determined on a class-wide basis, was referenced in an appeals court decision by the United States Court of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit issued on December 10, 2024. The case was Lawanda D. Small v. Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, United States Court of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit, Case No. 23-55821.
