Family and Insurance Company Fight Over $15 Million Life Insurance Policy
- Germaine Tomlinson was not a wealthy woman, but in 2006 she applied for a $15 million life insurance policy.
- The Germaine Tomlinson Insurance Trust was ultimately appointed as beneficiary of the policy.
- Tomlinson then signed documents giving the company of JB Carlson, a 36 year-old man and a “special companion” of Tomlinson, ownership of the trust.
- The trust took out a 30-month loan to pay the large insurance premiums on the policy.
- In 2008, Tomlinson was found dead in her bathtub. She was 74 and the cause of death was eventually ruled an accident.
- Carlson was the last person to see Tomlinson. He had driven her home from a bar because she was tipsy.
- The insurance company that issued the life insurance policy has now asked a court to declare the policy void, claiming that Carlson inflated the net-worth of Tomlinson and misled the company into believing the policy was valid by indicating that Tomlinson was an important person in Carlson’s business.
- Carlson asserts that the two-year period for contesting the policy has passed and that the trust is the rightful beneficiary of the policy.
- Tomlinson’s family also claims that the policy should be paid; however, they are trying to gain control of the life insurance policy by claiming that Carlson had no legitimate reason to obtain a policy on Tomlinson’s life.
See Leslie Scism & Mark Maremont, Life, Death, and Insurance: Indiana’s $15 Million Mystery, WSJ, April 12, 2010.
Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this to my attention.
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