Georgia Adopts a Totality-of-the-Circumstances Test for When a Third Party “Procured or Caused to Be Procured” a Life Insurance Policy (STOLI/Wagering Analysis)

1. Introduction

Wilmington Trust, National Association v. Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. (Supreme Court of Georgia, Feb. 17, 2026) arises from a dispute over a $6,000,000 life insurance policy on the life of Jacqueline Leone. After Leone’s death in 2022, the record owner, Wilmington Trust, demanded payment of death benefits. Ameritas denied the claim, asserting the policy was a stranger-originated life insurance (“STOLI”) arrangement—i.e., an alleged wager on human life—rendering the policy void under Georgia’s insurable-interest statute.

In federal litigation, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia certified questions to the Georgia Supreme Court focused on when third-party involvement in obtaining a policy triggers OCGA § 33-24-3(i) (2006), which voids a life policy “procured or caused to be procured upon another individual” unless benefits are payable to the insured (or estate) or to someone with an insurable interest at the time the contract was made.

The Georgia Supreme Court treated the certified questions as seeking a workable standard for identifying when a third party “procured or caused to be procured” a policy on another person’s life—an issue central to STOLI litigation, premium-financing programs, life-settlement pipelines, and post-death contest disputes.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Court held that a third party can be found to have “procured or caused to be procured” a life insurance policy on another person’s life even if the insured participated in the transaction, so long as the third party is the one who effectively obtained or acquired the policy. The Court rejected bright-line rules proposed by each side (insured participation always defeats third-party procurement; premium payment alone conclusively establishes third-party procurement). Instead, it adopted a totality-of-the-circumstances approach.

The Court answered the first two certified questions (as reframed) and found it unnecessary to answer the third question.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited

Crum v. Jackson Nat'l Life Ins. Co.

Crum v. Jackson Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 315 Ga. 67 (2022), supplied the interpretive roadmap. Crum emphasized that Georgia’s ban on life-insurance wagering is implemented through the insurable-interest requirement in OCGA § 33-24-3, and it distinguished:

  • Policies procured by the insured on their own life under OCGA § 33-24-3(b) (2006) (generally permissible even with unilateral intent to sell), versus
  • Policies “procured or caused to be procured” on another person under OCGA § 33-24-3(i) (2006) (restricted; potentially void).

Crum also flagged (in a footnote) the unresolved edge case: third-party “causing” procurement where the insured is formally the applicant/beneficiary but then promptly sells. Wilmington Trust squarely addresses the “procured or caused to be procured” component by defining its meaning and the method for determining who, in substance, obtained the policy.

Docs of CT, LLC v. Biotek Servs., LLC; Wallace v. State

The Court drew its textualist methodology from Docs of CT, LLC v. Biotek Servs., LLC, 321 Ga. 588 (2025), and Wallace v. State, 321 Ga. 505 (2025): read statutory language in its most natural and reasonable sense in context, using contemporaneous dictionaries as a starting point while recognizing dictionary limits.

Maslenjak v. United States; Dean v. United States

Relying on Maslenjak v. United States, 582 US 335 (2017), the Court reinforced that “procure” naturally means “to obtain,” and it used Dean v. United States, 556 US 568 (2009), to explain the significance of passive-voice drafting: OCGA § 33-24-3(i) focuses on an event (“procured or caused to be procured”) without specifying a single actor, consistent with the possibility of multiple causal participants.

Union Fraternal League v. Walton; Rylander v. Allen (the “strawman/cover for a wager” lineage)

The Court treated Union Fraternal League v. Walton, 109 Ga. 1 (1899), and Rylander v. Allen, 125 Ga. 206 (1906), as key historical anchors. Those cases articulated the classic anti-evasion principle: what cannot be done directly (a stranger taking out insurance on another’s life without insurable interest) cannot be done indirectly through an insured acting as an agent or “strawman,” especially where a preconceived plan exists for immediate assignment and premium funding by the stranger.

Importantly, Wilmington Trust does not convert Walton and Rylander into rigid elements. It treats them as illustrative examples of circumstances showing that the insured may be acting as an instrumentality for someone else—consistent with OCGA § 33-24-3(i) as a codification of the “strawman” concept.

Burton v. John Hancock Mut. Ins. Co. (distinguished)

Wilmington Trust relied on Burton v. John Hancock Mut. Ins. Co., 164 Ga. App. 592 (1982), for the proposition that insured consent and participation necessarily mean the insured “procured” the policy. The Court found Burton unpersuasive on the statutory phrase at issue because Burton did not meaningfully analyze “procured or caused to be procured” or confront the significance of third-party involvement.

PHL Variable Ins. Co. v. Price Dawe 2006 Ins. Trust, ex rel. Christiana Bank & Trust Co. (partial alignment; premium-payment bright line rejected)

The Court cited PHL Variable Ins. Co. v. Price Dawe 2006 Ins. Trust, ex rel. Christiana Bank & Trust Co., 28 A3d 1059 (Del. 2011), for the “ultimate question” framing: who obtained the policy. But it expressly declined to follow any reading of Price Dawe that would reduce the inquiry to a single factor such as premium payment.

WS CE Resort Owner, LLC v. Holland (anti-multi-factor-test caution)

To avoid turning “totality” into a checklist with assigned weights, the Court invoked WS CE Resort Owner, LLC v. Holland, 315 Ga. 691 (2023): the “ultimate inquiry cannot be reduced to a multi-factor test.” Factors may guide, but the inquiry remains holistic and functional.

Persuasive STOLI decisions and fact-pattern guidance

The Court cited several non-Georgia decisions and orders for illustrative factors and modern STOLI mechanics, including:

  • Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 238 NJ 157 (2019) (background discussion of STOLI).
  • Estate of Malkin v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 998 F3d 1186 (11th Cir. 2021) (STOLI background).
  • Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 44 F4th 1024 (7th Cir. 2022) (insured as instrumentality within a program).
  • Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada v. Bank of Utah, No. 1:21-cv-03973-LMM (N.D. Ga. Nov. 6, 2023) (contextual factors, sophistication).
  • CMFG Life Ins. Co. v. Nance, No. 24-cv-01034-ABA (D. Md. Jan. 7, 2026) (hands-on third-party control: application, management, premiums).

These authorities did not supply binding rules; they supported the Court’s choice to evaluate substance over form and to treat procurement as a real-world “effective acquisition” question.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

The Court’s reasoning proceeds in three moves:

  1. Statutory structure controls. OCGA § 33-24-3(b) (2006) permits a person to insure their own life and name any beneficiary; OCGA § 33-24-3(i) (2006) restricts policies “procured or caused to be procured” on another person’s life. Determining which subsection applies turns on who, in substance, procured (or caused procurement of) the policy.
  2. “Procured” and “caused to be procured” are functional concepts. Using contemporaneous dictionary meanings and statutory context, the Court reads “procured” as “obtained/acquired” and “caused” as “brought about.” That framing makes it possible for an insured to play a formal role while a third party effectively obtains the policy through orchestration, control, and economic reality.
  3. Totality of the circumstances is required. The statute does not support a single-factor test. The Court therefore rejects: (a) Wilmington Trust’s theory that insured consent/participation is dispositive, and (b) Ameritas’s theory that premium payment alone is dispositive. Instead, courts must examine all relevant circumstances to decide who effectively obtained the policy and whether the insured served as an instrumentality.

The Court provided a non-exhaustive set of potentially relevant circumstances:

  • Who paid the premiums (including through financing structures and whether repayment was realistic).
  • Who located the insured (e.g., marketing channels, brokers, “program” recruitment).
  • Who participated in forming the policy (who drove underwriting, documentation, timelines).
  • Who prepared/controlled the content of documents (boilerplate forms, non-negotiable structures).
  • Whether the policy was created for the benefit of the insured/family or for investors as an asset.
  • Who had the power to name the trustee and who controlled any trust structure.
  • The insured’s financial sophistication and ability to understand/meaningfully direct the transaction.
  • The extent and substance (not mere presence) of the insured’s participation in the application process.

The governing standard the Court announced is concise: a third party may be said to have “procured or caused to be procured” a life insurance policy on another “even if the insured played a role,” when the third party “effectively obtained or acquired the policy,” assessed under the “totality of the circumstances.”

3.3. Impact

This decision creates a clear Georgia rule for STOLI-adjacent disputes litigating under OCGA § 33-24-3(i): procurement is not a formal-title question and not reducible to a single datum (such as insured consent or premium source). The inquiry is substantive and holistic: who effectively acquired the policy and used the insured as an instrumentality.

Likely consequences include:

  • More fact-intensive litigation at summary judgment. Because courts must evaluate totality, parties will emphasize program documents, financing terms, trust control, servicing arrangements, default mechanics, and post-issuance transfers to show effective acquisition.
  • Greater scrutiny of premium-finance “nonrecourse” structures. Arrangements designed to ensure inevitable default and transfer can be probative of who effectively acquired the policy (without making any single feature dispositive).
  • Reduced reliability of “formal compliance” signals. Signed intent forms or insured participation will not necessarily insulate a transaction if surrounding circumstances show third-party orchestration.
  • Bridging pre-2009 and post-2009 regimes. Although the Court noted the 2009 enactments defining and criminalizing aspects of STOLI conduct and declined to address them (because the policy predates them and no question was certified), the functional approach here will likely influence how courts characterize conduct that also implicates later anti-STOLI statutes.

The decision also leaves open (because not certified) the second, separate step of OCGA § 33-24-3(i): even if a third party procured/caused procurement, whether the benefits were payable at the time of contracting to the insured/estate or someone with an insurable interest.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Insurable interest
A legally recognized reason to benefit from the continued life of the insured (e.g., close family relationship or financial dependence). Without it, a policy taken out on someone else’s life resembles a wager on their death.
STOLI (stranger-originated life insurance)
A transaction where investors, directly or indirectly, initiate or structure a policy on a stranger’s life for investment returns, often using premium financing and later transfer into the life-settlement market.
“Procured or caused to be procured”
Not merely who signed papers. It means who effectively obtained/acquired the policy or brought about its acquisition—potentially through coordination and control even if the insured participated.
Strawman / instrumentality
A situation where the insured is used as a nominal participant while a third party is the real mover who effectively obtains the policy as an investment asset.
Totality of the circumstances
A holistic evaluation of all relevant facts—no single factor is automatically decisive, and courts do not mechanically count factors. The point is to determine the transaction’s real substance.
Passive voice in statutes
When a statute describes an event without naming a specific actor (here, “procured or caused to be procured”), it often signals the law is concerned with what happened and whether it happened through someone’s causation, not with formal labels.

5. Conclusion

Wilmington Trust, National Association v. Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. establishes that, under OCGA § 33-24-3(i) (2006), a third party may “procure or cause to be procured” a life insurance policy on another person’s life even where the insured consents or participates, if the third party is the one who effectively obtained or acquired the policy. Georgia courts must resolve this question using a totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry, rejecting bright-line rules based solely on insured participation or premium payment.

The decision meaningfully strengthens Georgia’s functional, anti-wagering approach to insurable interest by focusing litigation on economic reality and control, while preserving flexibility for courts to evaluate evolving premium-finance and life-settlement structures.