Identifying the policy is only the beginning.
In a complex divorce, the more difficult question may be what happens to an existing life insurance contract when ownership, funding, policy values or benefits are changed as part of a settlement. American West Advisory independently examines personally owned, trust-owned and business-owned life insurance to identify material issues, inconsistencies and unanswered questions before counsel relies upon the insurance evidence in negotiation or settlement.
A current statement can identify a policy’s owner, death benefit and reported cash value. Those facts may not establish what the contract will actually do if the parties change it.
An independent examination may be appropriate when counsel needs to understand:
The objective is not simply to inventory the policies. It is to determine whether the available insurance evidence tells the complete story and what additional information should be obtained before material decisions are made.
High-net-worth divorce matters may involve life insurance held through several different ownership structures.
AWA examines the insurance contracts and available carrier information to help counsel understand the insurance implications surrounding personally owned policies, trust-owned life insurance, business-owned coverage, buy-sell funding, key-person insurance, collateral assignments and other existing arrangements.
Where information is incomplete or inconsistent, AWA identifies the questions that remain and the carrier records or in-force illustrations needed to resolve them.
American West Advisory does not determine whether an asset is marital or separate property and does not provide legal, tax or business-valuation advice.
We do not sell life insurance products or represent an insurance carrier.
Our role is narrower and deliberate: independently examine the existing insurance evidence, identify material insurance issues and provide counsel with a more complete factual and contractual record from which to evaluate the matter.
Joe Stefanec has worked with life insurance contracts since 1973—across multiple generations of whole life, universal life, variable life, indexed universal life, survivorship and term insurance. That experience becomes particularly relevant when an older or complex contract must be understood not simply for what it says today, but for how it may respond to the changes being considered in a divorce settlement.
An initial conversation can usually determine
whether independent life insurance analysis would be useful.