## Facts

- Allstate issued a life insurance policy on John Miller effective September 20, 2000, after a required pre-issuance medical examination.
- The policy included an incontestability clause providing that it would become incontestable after being in force during the insured’s lifetime for two years, tracking Fla. Stat. § 627.455.
- On October 4, 2002, John Miller changed the beneficiaries to Steve Miller and Nicholas Demetro.
- John Miller died on April 20, 2003, more than two years after the policy’s effective date.
- The beneficiaries submitted claims; Allstate refused to pay, alleging the policy was procured by fraud because an impostor appeared for the medical exam.
- Allstate sued in federal district court (diversity) for rescission and declaratory relief that no benefits were owed.
- The district court granted summary judgment for the beneficiaries based on the policy’s and statute’s incontestability bar; Allstate appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Florida’s life-insurance incontestability statute and corresponding policy clause bar an insurer, after two years in force during the insured’s lifetime, from contesting coverage based on alleged impostor fraud in the pre-issuance medical examination.
2. Whether the insurer may avoid the incontestability bar by characterizing impostor fraud as a contract-formation defect rendering the policy void ab initio for lack of mutual assent.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the summary judgment for the beneficiaries.
- After a policy has been in force during the insured’s lifetime for two years, Florida law makes the policy incontestable except for specified statutory exceptions.
- Florida law does not recognize an implied “impostor” exception to incontestability.
- The insurer’s “void ab initio” and “no meeting of the minds” theories did not circumvent the statutory incontestability regime on these facts.

## Legal Principles

- Fla. Stat. § 627.455 functions as a time bar: once the two-year period runs during the insured’s lifetime, an insurer generally cannot contest the policy’s validity, including on fraud-in-procurement grounds, absent an express statutory exception.
- Courts applying Florida law may not create additional exceptions to the incontestability statute beyond those enumerated by the legislature.
- Allegations that an impostor took the underwriting medical exam are treated as procurement-related fraud for incontestability purposes and remain barred after the two-year period.
- Reframing a fraud challenge as lack of contract formation does not avoid incontestability where the legislature has chosen finality after two years, subject only to limited statutory carve-outs.

## Conclusion

The court held that Florida’s two-year incontestability rule barred Allstate from rescinding or avoiding the life insurance policy based on alleged impostor medical-exam fraud, and it rejected attempts to bypass the statute by labeling the policy void from inception.


Allstate Life Ins. Co. v. Miller, 424 F.3d 1113 (11th Cir. 2005)