The Knowledge & Experience to Take You Further
Thomas M. Sullivan
Of Counsel
Davis & Harman clients benefit from Tom Sullivan's career-long commitment to life insurance issues. While still in law school, Tom managed the individual and group life claim department at Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company. Later, Tom was hired by Connecticut General Life Insurance Company as a life lawyer and government relations liaison with the state's General Assembly.
By the time Tom joined Aetna Life & Casualty in 1972, he had established a solid reputation in the Connecticut insurance community as both a life business legal specialist and an effective government relations operative on life and related legislative and regulatory matters. Tom headed several Aetna Law Department practice groups including those responsible for government relations, individual and group life and health insurance, annuities, and pensions/financial services. Tom served as a senior member of Aetna's Law Department for 20 years before being named principal internal counsel to the CIGNA (Connecticut General Life Insurance Company) Corporate Insurance Group, until recently one of the nation’s largest underwriters of executive compensation plans, private placement and registered variable life products, and corporate/bank-owned life insurance (COLI/BOLI) programs.
"I started my life insurance career as a claim examiner while I was in law school," says Thomas Sullivan. "That experience set me on the path to becoming a life insurance 'expert' and taught me very quickly the unique value of life insurance to families and businesses."
At CIGNA, Tom advised the Corporate Insurance Group on COLI/BOLI-related state insurance law and federal tax and securities matters and became an authority on state insurable interest statues, playing lead roles in drafting and supporting the enactment of Ohio's first law on the subject and in the liberalization of the archetypal New York Insurance Law section 3205.
Today, Tom provides Davis & Harman clients with specialized counsel on insurable interest questions and other state insurance law and regulation matters. He has substantial expertise in the life insurance provisions of the New York Insurance Law and acted as Aetna's and CIGNA's principal interface with the New York Insurance Department's Financial Condition Life Bureau on contract and compliance issues.
Tom has also chaired or served on many National Association of Insurance Commissioners and life industry association committees and task forces on matters as far-ranging as underwriting for AIDS and "banks-in-insurance". His writings on life insurance and financial services issues have appeared in publications of the American Council of Life Insurers, the Association of Life Insurance Counsel and the Society of Actuaries.
In a long legal career, Tom is most proud of the role he has played in the professional development of many young lawyers. As Chair of the Aetna Law Department Education and Rotation Committee, he oversaw the hiring and education of new lawyers for a 120-plus-lawyer department.
Prior Experience
- Associate General Counsel, Legal Department, CIGNA Corporation
- VP and Associate General Counsel, Law Department, Aetna Life & Casualty
- Assistant General Counsel, Legal Department, Connecticut General Life Ins. Co.
- Assistant Counsel, Law, Winchester-Western Division of Olin Corporation
- Manager, Individual/Group Life & Health Claim Division, Phoenix Mutual Life Ins. Co.
Memberships
- Member, New York, Connecticut and District of Columbia Bars
- Member, New York State and District of Columbia Bar Associations
The Willard 1455 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
, Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20004 Tel 202-347-2230
Fax 202-393-3310
Education
- BA, Fordham University, 1964
- JD, University of Connecticut School of Law, 1968
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