Transamerica Will Pay $110 Million Over 2,356 Life Insurance Policies. There Is No Claim Form, the Floor Is $100 a Policy — and the Policies It Already Credited $14.6 Million to Get Nothing From the Fund.

The court-authorised website is WrenCVISettlement.com, run by JND Legal Administration. The policies at issue are a form of group universal life coverage sold decades ago under the names “Direct Recognition Life 10” and “Direct Recognition Life 11.” The settlement agreement lists six “DRL Issuers” — the statutory insurance entities that issued the policies: General Services Life Insurance Company, Bankers United Life Assurance Company, Pacific Fidelity Life Insurance Company, Western Reserve Life Insurance Company of Ohio, Monumental Life Insurance Company and Monumental General Insurance Company. A certificate that came through one of those names is the starting point, not the whole test: the policy also has to have been in force on January 1, 2016 and set up under a group master policy, group certificate and issue illustration, and the notice excludes certain policyowners “whom TLIC has identified as excluded pursuant to prior confidential agreements with TLIC.”

The policies carry “Cash Value Increases” — CVIs — at certain anniversaries. Class counsel's motion for preliminary approval puts it in one sentence: the policies “contain CVIs for certain policy anniversaries — e.g., the 20th, 30th, and 40th years — when Transamerica would increase the policies' cash values. But in 2016, Transamerica notified policyholders that ‘we will not credit any cash value bonuses’ for ‘the 30th and 40th anniversary years.’” Transamerica's stated reason was that its refusal was “[c]onsistent with the terms of the settlement of [the Oakes] class action lawsuit[] in 2001 that included your policy.”

William F. Wren sued in February 2021, after his own policy passed its 30th anniversary without the bonus. The case nearly ended there: on November 9, 2022 the court granted Transamerica summary judgment, holding that the 2001 Oakes settlement barred the claim. The Ninth Circuit reversed on March 7, 2024, holding that the “current claims could not have been raised at the time of the prior class action suit” and so were “not barred.” Fact discovery then ran to September 30, 2025 — more than two million pages, 1,800 spreadsheets and twelve depositions, including a three-day corporate deposition — and the parties settled after two mediation sessions with Robert Meyer of JAMS, the first on October 9, 2025. John Murphy joined Wren as the second class representative.

One episode in that history matters for the money. On May 27, 2025, in the middle of discovery, Transamerica told plaintiffs' counsel it “would provide the relief sought in the litigation for some, but not all, Class Members” — it would credit their 30-year CVIs after all, with interest, and their 40-year CVIs if the policies reached that milestone. The motion says Transamerica “then credited the 30-year CVIs in multiple waves, for a total of $14.6 million to these Class Members' accounts,” and that its internal documents called the effort the “Wren Crediting Project.” The settlement calls it the Bonus Crediting Project. That distinction — credited already, or not — is the axis of the whole payout.

Exhibit A to the settlement agreement is the Plan of Allocation, and it is short enough to quote. Step one: “the unpaid CVI amount for the Policy's 30-Year Anniversary (‘Unpaid 30-Year CVI Amount’) for each Recipient is … the amount of the CVI due using the 30-year CVI percentage … less … the 30-year CVI amount(s), if any, that were credited to the Policy exclusive of any interest included in the credited 30-year CVI amount(s).” Then the sentence that sorts the class: “For the avoidance of doubt, any Policy that received a credit for its 30-Year Guaranteed CVI amount under the Bonus Crediting Project shall have an Unpaid 30-Year CVI Amount of zero.”

Step two divides each policy's unpaid amount by the total unpaid amount across all class policies; step three multiplies that share by the Net Settlement Fund. A policy with an unpaid amount of zero has a share of zero. The floor is written the same way: “Except for any Recipient whose Policy was included in the Bonus Crediting Project, no Recipient's share of the Net Settlement Fund shall be less than $100, including those Settlement Class Members whose Policies terminated prior to their 30-Year Anniversary, who have no Unpaid 30-Year CVI Amounts.” So a policy that lapsed or ended before its 30th anniversary gets at least $100; a policy that Transamerica credited in 2025 or 2026 gets its credit, locked in, and no cheque from the fund.

The Net Settlement Fund is the Final Settlement Fund — $110 million, reduced by the proportionate CVIs of any policies that validly opt out (the agreement's own example: if 5 % of the CVIs opt out the fund becomes $104.5 million, and that difference goes back to Transamerica within seven business days of the final approval order) — less administration costs, fees, expenses and service awards. Class counsel “will request attorneys' fees not to exceed one-third of the gross settlement benefits provided to the Settlement Class,” to be posted on the website before the objection deadline. On the $110 million alone, one-third is $36,666,667. Under paragraph 127 of the agreement, Transamerica separately pays the first $5,835,397.97 of any fee award into an escrow outside the fund, in exchange for the plaintiffs withdrawing a motion to require Transamerica to reserve fees from the common fund. Service awards are up to $25,000 for each of the two plaintiffs. Our arithmetic, not the court's: if the court awarded a full third of the fund and the escrow covered its $5.84 million, the fund would pay about $30.8 million in fees and $50,000 in awards, leaving roughly $79 million before administration costs. Spread across all 2,356 policies that is about $33,500 a policy on a straight average — and the average among the policies that actually take from the pool is higher, because the credited policies take nothing. The plan is pro rata by unpaid CVI, so individual cheques will sit far from any average.

Two more mechanics. Where a policy has more than one owner of record, “the Recipient's pro-rata share of the Net Settlement Fund shall be divided equally among each of those Policyowners.” And once the Final Settlement Fund is set, nothing goes back to Transamerica: within one year plus 30 days after the first cheques are mailed, any money left is redistributed pro rata “to Recipients who previously negotiated the checks they received,” for as long as another round is economical.

The notice lists four items of relief, and only the first is cash. The second is the Bonus Crediting Project itself: Transamerica “will not rescind, revoke, or reverse certain credits it paid, and has committed to pay” under the 2025–2026 project that credited 30-year guaranteed CVIs to in-force policies. The motion values that project, including the 40-year commitments, at “more than $26.5 million,” which is how the plaintiffs reach a headline figure of “more than $142 million” in total value. Those two larger numbers are the plaintiffs' valuation, not money in the fund.

The third is the 40-year benefit: Transamerica “will credit the 40-Year Guaranteed CVI for certain eligible DRL policies if they remain in force on their 40-year policy anniversaries.” The agreement ties this to policies “included in the Bonus Crediting Project” — the same group that gets no cheque — and it depends on the policy still being in force on the day. The fourth is non-contestability: Transamerica “will not seek to void, rescind, cancel, declare void, or otherwise deny certain death claims submitted by Settlement Class Members based on alleged lack of insurable interest or alleged misrepresentations made in connection with the original application process.” Paragraph 88 of the agreement draws two lines around that promise: it “does not apply to any alleged lack of insurable interest or misrepresentations made in connection with an application to reinstate coverage,” and it is prospective — it does not undo anything Transamerica did before the settlement.

What class members give up is narrower than a general release. The released claims are those “arising out of or relating to TLIC's refusal to credit the Settlement Class Policies' CVIs and its good faith in connection with the same.” The notice carves out “any claim for payment of a death benefit on a DRL Policy other than any claim for any unpaid CVIs as a portion of a death benefit,” claims to enforce policy terms unrelated to the CVIs, and claims to enforce the settlement itself. There is a second, forward-looking release as well: from the Final Settlement Date onward, class members release claims “arising out of or relating to the Cash Value Increases for the Settlement Class Policies,” as the motion summarises paragraph 114 of the agreement.

The search phrase behind this article is “Transamerica life insurance settlement payout time,” so here is the sequence. There is no claim window. The fairness hearing is November 9, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific before Judge Bernal in Courtroom 1, 2nd Floor of the George E. Brown, Jr. Federal Building, 3470 Twelfth Street, Riverside. Paragraph 133 of the agreement sets the mailing: “Within 60 days after the Final Settlement Date or as otherwise provided in the Final Approval Order, the Settlement Administrator shall disburse the cash compensation portion of the Settlement Relief by mailing a check to each Settlement Class Member.” The Final Settlement Date comes after final approval and after any appeal is resolved. The notice says only: “If the Court approves the Settlement, there may be appeals. It is always uncertain how these appeals will be resolved and resolving them can take time.” By our reading of that calendar — no document names a date — the first cheques would land in early 2027 if nobody appeals. If someone does, the date is open.

October 2, 2026 is the only date that requires action, and only from people who want out or want to be heard. An opt-out is a signed letter, postmarked by that date, to the Wren v. TLIC Settlement Administrator, c/o JND Legal Administration, P.O. Box 91248, Seattle, WA 98111, naming the case, the policyowner, the policy numbers and a statement that you want to be excluded. Opting out removes all of your class policies at once; only a trustee or agent holding policies for more than one principal can split them. An objection is filed with the Clerk of the Court in Riverside and served on class counsel and Transamerica's counsel by the same date, and must include your qualifying certificate numbers.

Doing nothing is the default and the intended path: “Those who are eligible to receive a payment from the Settlement do not need to do anything to receive payment.” Class counsel are Susman Godfrey (Steven G. Sklaver, Seth Ard, Zach Savage) and Bonnet Fairbourn Friedman & Balint (Andrew S. Friedman, Francis J. Balint); the administrator answers at 1-888-305-6486 and info@wrenCVIsettlement.com. The notice also tells recipients to “consult with your own tax advisor regarding the tax consequences” — a cheque for an uncredited cash value bonus is not the same thing, for tax purposes, as a credit inside a life policy. Our JND Legal Administration page explains how this administrator's mailings look; anyone asking you to pay a fee to release a settlement cheque is not JND.