Nice "toe stubbage" from settlement planner Bill Tilley of Amicus Settlement Planning who solicits trial lawyers with the warning "The Most Serious Risks You Don't See Coming". Ironically in designing his website Tilley apparently hasn't "seen coming" an apparent violation of New York Insurance Law by how he has engaged in search engine optimization.
You see there's the matter of New York Insurance Law § 2122(b) entitled "advertising by insurance agents and brokers" The statute provides:
"Every agent of any insurer and every insurance broker shall, in all advertisements, public announcements, signs, pamphlets, circulars and cards, which refer to an insurer, set forth therein the name in full of the insurer referred to and the name of the city, town or village in which it has its principal office in the United States".
What Tilley/Amicus Settlement Planning have done is list as structured settlement "providers"
Allstate Structure Settlements
Aviva Structured Settlements
Hartford Structured Settlements
John Hancock Structured Settlements
Pacific Life Structured Settlements
Prudential Structured Settlements
Symetra Structured Settlements
MetLife Structured Settlements
Consider:
- The Amicus Settlement Planning blog qualifies as an advertisement
- Amicus lists a New York address at 132 W 31 Street and is known to solicit insurance business in New York and thus is subject to New York insurance law.
- None of the aforementioned names is the legal name of an insurance company
- None of these displays the city and state of the home office of an insurance company
- The Aviva subsidiaries offering structured settlement annuities haven't done so since December 2008.
- The Hartford subsidiaries offering structured settlement annuities haven't done so since October 2009.
- How ethical is it if Amicus/ Tilley's search engine results come up prior to others who follow New York Insurance statute 2122(b)?
On his Linked In Profile, Mr Tilley states that he is concerned with "improving the business of law".
Perhaps he can start by following it!
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