Case Summary

The NRA’s Carry Guard insurance program, which promised to cover an individual’s legal expenses if they shot someone and claimed self-defense, was unveiled at the 2017 NRA convention with much fanfare but has subsequently become a regulatory debacle.

In February 2020, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) formally charged the NRA with acting as an unlicensed insurance producer with respect to the Carry Guard insurance product.  These civil charges followed a multiyear investigation into the NRA’s insurance program that began, in 2017, when the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, along with the volunteer network Mom’s Demand Action, conducted and shared with regulators an investigation and legal analysis of the NRA’s Carry Guard program.

Among other allegations, the state’s charging document states: Despite representing to its members that the NRA insurance programs were negotiated in order to obtain coverage ‘at the lowest possible cost’ to its members, it is clear that the NRA members could have negotiated less expensive coverage for its members but for the fact that a substantial portion of the premiums paid by NRA members — sometimes exceeding 20% — was being paid to the NRA in the form of royalties. Marketing materials relating to NRA-endorsed insurance programs wholly failed to disclose that the NRA was receiving royalties based on the amounts paid by its members.”

On November 13, 2020, the NRA settled with New York State DFS. The NRA was forced to pay a $2.5 million civil fine in light of findings of multiple violations of NY law including selling an insurance product that regulators found was “dangerous and impermissible.”

Some of the NRA’s partners in this venture—Lockton Affinity, Illinois Union, and Lloyd’s of London—also settled with regulators in New York State and/or Washington State for an aggregate of more than $13 million in fines. 

In a separate litigation, the NRA brought suit against DFS for various First Amendment claims (such as selective prosecution) in the federal court in the Northern District of New York.  The majority of that case has subsequently been dismissed by the court.  The filings on this page are a collection of significant filings from New York state court and the federal court in the Northern District of New York and settlement documents made public by DFS.