CITIZENS INC

Item 1. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

Trade Secret Lawsuit

In the first quarter of 2024, a jury trial was held in the “trade secret lawsuit”. The trade secret lawsuit was filed in 2018 by Citizens, CICA Life Ltd. (Bermuda) and CICA Life Insurance Company of America (collectively, the “Citizens Companies,” “we,” "us" or "our") against certain former employees and independent consultants who we alleged unlawfully took Citizens’ confidential information in order to unfairly compete with us. Our claims against these parties included various unfair competition, tortious interference, breach of contract and other related claims.

In March 2024, the jury found that (i) Defendant Carlos Nalsen Landa (“Landa”), a former independent consultant, misappropriated the Citizens’ Companies policyholder information, (ii) Citizens’ former chief underwriter, Michael P. Buchweitz (“Buchweitz”) and Randall Riley (“Riley”), a former Citizens executive and son of Citizens’ founder Harold E. Riley, failed to comply with their Citizens’ confidentiality agreements, and (iii) both Buchweitz and Riley intentionally interfered with former Chief Actuary Jonathan Pollio’s ("Pollio") Citizens’ confidentiality agreement. For Buchweitz, the jury also found that he did not have a good faith belief that he was acting in the bona fide exercise of his own rights when he interfered with Pollio’s Citizens’ confidentiality agreement. Despite these findings, the jury did not believe that the above-mentioned actions damaged the Citizens Companies economically and thus did not assess any monetary damages against any of the above parties. Additionally, the jury found that Citizens should pay Alexis Delgado (“Delgado”, a former independent consultant) and Landa approximately $1.3 million for “money had and received”, an equitable theory that claimed that the Citizens Companies would be unjustly enriched if they didn’t pay past and future commissions to Delgado and Landa.

On April 30, 2024, Defendants Riley (through his estate), Buchweitz and Delgado filed a motion against the Citizens Companies seeking approximately $3.9 million in legal fees and a hearing was held on these matters on May 21, 2024. On July 26, 2024, the trial court awarded Riley and Buchweitz approximately $3.5 million of their legal fees.

We do not believe the jury properly found that Delgado or Landa were entitled to any prior or future commissions as there was no evidence that we actually held any amount of commissions that they claim they should have received. We also do not believe that Riley or Buchweitz are entitled to legal fees because they were found to have breached the contracts whose fee shifting provisions they sought to invoke. We intend to appeal the judgment against us.