Phillips v. The Prudential Ins. Co. of America

Dist. Ct. did not err in dismissing for failure to state cause of action plaintiff’s class action alleging that defendant-insurance company’s default payment method and enrollment of plaintiff in defendant’s Alliance Account when paying her claim breached insurance policy and unreasonably delayed payment of insurance benefits in violation of section 155 of Ill. Insurance Code. Terms of policy gave option to plaintiff to chose among several payment options, and plaintiff’s failure to select any payment method triggered defendant’s preferred method of setting up Alliance Account, which gave plaintiff option to withdraw any amount of policy proceeds at any time. Moreover, terms of policy did not guarantee that it would pay beneficiary lump sum of policy's proceeds to exclusion of any other option. Plaintiff’s claim for vexatious delay was properly dismissed where plaintiff failed to allege that defendant had taken excessive amount of time to set up her Alliance Account.