Real Housewives of Orange County star Vicki Gunvalson’s legal team tells In Touch the reality star did not commit financial elder abuse and they are ready to fight the lawsuit brought against her.
Vicki’s legal team tells In Touch, “Victoria Gunvalson is a well-respected insurance broker with more than 34 years of experience. She has helped more than 7000 clients. She vehemently denies each and every allegation set forth against her by Diane Field in this lawsuit.”
They continued, “Ms. Gunvalson followed the direction of her client, Diane Field, in placing the insurance products Ms. Field requested regarding the annuities and the life insurance policy. Ms. Gunvalson did not engage in any conduct that could be considered financial elder abuse, breach of fiduciary duty, or fraud.”
“Victoria Gunvalson remains committed to the highest standards of integrity and transparency,” they added. Her lawyers ended, “Needless to say, we are outraged by the false allegations being made against her. We will vigorously defend her good name and reputation in this lawsuit.”
As In Touch first reported, Vicki, 62, and her Coto Life Insurance were sued by a woman named Diane Field.
Diane, 74, said she met Vicki in 2019. She said Vicki and her partner Ali worked hard to convince her to move her money out of stocks and into annuities.
“[Vicki] kept reassuring her how safe this Allianz 222 Annuity was and also kept mentioning that her income taxes would go down if she invested in this annuity and that her kids would be well-suited after she passed away. [Vicki] was very convincing, and Diane felt that she could trust her,” the suit explained.
Diane said Vicki and Ali convinced her to transfer money into the Allianz account and take out a life insurance policy to cover her $6 million net worth. Diane claimed the life insurance policy was not as Ali had promised.
She claimed she believed she only had to make a one-time premium payment of $300,000 not $300,000 every year like she later learned.
On top of that, she claimed Vicki and Ali used misrepresentations and other fraudulent acts and omissions to deceive her into purchasing and paying into the Allianz 222 Annuity, “when they knew or should have known that their conduct was likely to be harmful to [Diane].”
She accused them of breaching their fiduciary duties as financial advisors by putting their financial interests ahead of her. Diane believes she lost money overall on the transactions.
In December 2022, Diane said she moved her money out of an account managed by Ali and into another account he didn’t control.
She said she expressed concerns to Vicki and Ali about the investment recommendations over the years, “explaining that she felt uninformed by them and that the annuities and life insurance policy they convinced her to open did not seem to be the best investments for her, as they tie up large sums of money for a long time that she may never be able to use, for maybe longer than she will live or will be too old to enjoy.”
The lawsuit demanded unspecified damages for the alleged financial elder abuse and fraud.
