Compulife Software Files Class Action Against the NAAIP

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

[UPDATE: This case was stayed by Judge Robin L. Rosenberg on January 31, 2017, pending a decision in two related lawsuits - Compulife Software, Inc. v. Rutstein et al. and Compulife Software, Inc. v. Newman et al. In those cases, U.S. Magistrate Judge James Hopkins ruled against Compulife in favor of the defendants.]

Compulife Software, Inc. has filed a proposed copyright infringement class action against the National Association of Accredited Insurance Professionals (NAAIP) and certain members over the group’s allegedly unlawful use of the plaintiff’s “Life Insurance Quote Engine” software agents’ websites. The lawsuit alleges the founder of the NAAIP—who is no stranger to legal problems, the suit notes—unlawfully copied Compulife’s HTML sources code from its website and reproduced it for use by all NAAIP members.

The lawsuit argues the founder of the NAAIP never had permission or authority to use the information contained within the plaintiff’s software and has continued to infringe upon Compulife’s property despite receiving numerous cease and desist notices.

“[The defendant] copied Compulife’s compilation of information contained within the Compulife Software concerning the term life insurance market, term life products, and term life rates, and reproduced Compulife’s compilation for NAAIP members to generate life insurances quotations on their NAAIP member websites using the NAAIP ‘Life Insurance Quote Engine,’” the complaint reads.

According to the 111-page complaint, Compulife is the creator of widely licensed life insurance quote comparison software. Notably, the company does not actually sell life insurance and therefore is not in competition with insurance agents, which allows Compulife to license its life insurance rate comparison software to costumers without bias. The NAAIP, the lawsuit says, is in the business of creating “free” websites for life insurance agents and used the “Life Insurance Quote Engine” as a marketing and advertising tool to generate leads from members’ websites.