Transamerica Direct Recognition Life Class Action Settlement ($110M)

Life Insurance · Pending — Automatic Payment

Current Status

There is no claim form in this settlement and nothing to file. The Court authorized notice to the Settlement Class, and Transamerica Life Insurance Company's records determine who is entitled to a payment; eligible policyowners receive a check in the mail from the Settlement Administrator once the Settlement is approved. The deadline to exclude yourself or to object is October 2, 2026 — the Notice gives only the date and does not specify a cutoff time or timezone. A fairness hearing is scheduled for November 9, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time in Riverside, California. No final approval order had been entered and no payment date had been announced as of August 22, 2026.

What Changed Recently?

The Settlement Administrator began mailing notice to Direct Recognition Life policyowners, which is what put dates on the calendar: an October 2, 2026 exclusion and objection deadline and a November 9, 2026 fairness hearing. The case behind it, Wren, et al. v. Transamerica Life Insurance Company, has been in the Central District of California since 2021 and reached settlement after discovery and mediation before a JAMS mediator.

The claim at the center of it is narrow but expensive: plaintiffs allege Transamerica improperly failed to credit certain Cash Value Increases associated with Direct Recognition Life policies, and failed to act in good faith in connection with those increases. Transamerica denies all of the allegations, denies any liability, and maintains that its conduct complied with the terms of the policies, the applicable agreements and governing law. No court has decided who is right — the parties agreed to settle to avoid the risks, costs and delays of continued litigation.

Disputes over how life insurers credit and charge policy values have produced their own settlements — the Kansas City Life cost-of-insurance settlement covered the deductions side of the same ledger, and it also paid class members automatically.

Who Qualifies?

You are a Settlement Class Member if all three of the following are true:

• You own or owned a Transamerica universal life insurance policy that was in effect on January 1, 2016;
• The policy was known by the product names "Direct Recognition Life 10" or "Direct Recognition Life 11," or by the attribute codes "DRL-10" or "DRL-11"; and
• The policy was established and defined by the provisions of a Group Master Policy, a Group Insurance Certificate and an Issue Illustration.

Note the past tense in the first line: policyowners who no longer hold the policy are not automatically excluded, so long as the policy was in effect on January 1, 2016.

The class excludes Transamerica itself, its officers and directors reported in its most recent Annual Statements and their immediate families, the presiding judge and his immediate family, anyone employed by Class Counsel's firms, policyowners who properly and timely file a request for exclusion, certain policyowners Transamerica has identified as excluded under prior confidential agreements, and the legal representatives, successors or assigns of anyone excluded.

How Much Can You Get?

Transamerica has agreed to create a $110 million Settlement Fund. After Settlement Administration Expenses, any service awards, any attorneys' fees and expenses awarded by the Court and any other Court-approved payments are deducted, the remaining Net Settlement Fund is distributed to Settlement Class Members under a Court-approved Plan of Allocation. What an individual policyowner receives depends on factors including the relative value of the qualifying CVIs associated with that policy or policies. The Notice publishes no per-person estimate and no minimum payment, so any figure you see quoted for an individual policy is not coming from the official documents.