American Western Life Insurance Co. v. Hooker

WILKINS, Justice:

In 1972 Ronald Hooker (hereafter “Ronald”), now deceased, took out a policy of decreasing term life insurance, policy # 43476 (hereafter “policy 43”) with Respondent American Western Life Insurance Company (hereafter “American Western”). In 1973 he purchased another decreasing term policy # 44498 (hereafter “policy 44”) from American Western. His then wife, Helen Hooker, now Respondent Helen Mallard (hereafter “Helen”) was named as beneficiary under both policies.

In 1974, Ronald executed forms supplied by American Western captioned “Change of Policy Ownership Designation,”…