West Virginia Code 33-27-13 – Recovery
(a) If an order for liquidation or rehabilitation of a domestic insurer has been entered, the receiver appointed under such order shall have a right to recover on behalf of the insurer, (1) from any parent corporation or holding company or person or affiliate who otherwise controlled the insurer, the amount of distributions (other than distributions of shares of the same class of stock) paid by the insurer on its capital stock, or (2) any payment in the form of a bonus, termination settlement or extraordinary lump sum salary adjustment made by the insurer or its subsidiary or subsidiaries to a director, officer or employee, when the distribution or payment pursuant to (1) or (2) is made at any time during the one year preceding the petition for liquidation, conservation or rehabilitation, as the case may be, subject to the limitations of subsections (b), (c) and (d) of this section.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 33-27-13
- Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
- Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
- Insurer: means any person or persons or corporation, partnership or company authorized by the laws of this state to transact the business of insurance in this state, except that it shall not include agencies, authorities or instrumentalities of the United States, its possessions and territories, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia or a state or political subdivision of a state. See West Virginia Code 33-27-2
- Person: means an individual, a corporation, a limited liability company, a partnership, an association, a joint-stock company, a trust, an unincorporated organization, a depository institution or any similar entity or any combination of the foregoing acting in concert, but does not include any joint venture partnership exclusively engaged in owning, managing, leasing or developing real or tangible personal property. See West Virginia Code 33-27-2
- Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
(b) No such distribution may be recoverable if the parent corporation or affiliate shows that when paid such distribution was lawful and reasonable, and that the insurer did not know and could not reasonably have known that such distribution might adversely affect the ability of the insurer to fulfill its contractual obligations.
(c) Any person who was a parent corporation or holding company or a person who otherwise controlled the insurer or affiliate at the time such distributions were paid shall be liable up to the amount of distributions or payments under subsection (a) of this section that such person received. Any person who otherwise controlled the insurer at the time such distributions were declared is liable up to the amount of distributions he or she would have received if they had been paid immediately. If two or more persons are liable with respect to the same distributions, they shall be jointly and severally liable.
(d) The maximum amount recoverable under this subsection shall be the amount needed in excess of all other available assets of the impaired or insolvent insurer to pay the contractual obligations of the impaired or insolvent insurer and to reimburse any guaranty funds.
(e) To the extent that any person liable under subsection (c) of this section is insolvent or otherwise fails to pay claims due from it pursuant to subsection (c), its parent corporation or holding company or person who otherwise controlled it at the time the distribution was paid, shall be jointly and severally liable for any resulting deficiency in the amount recovered from such parent corporation or holding company or person who otherwise controlled it.