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The Man Who Wouldn’t Die – The Bizarre Depression Era Crime That Shaped How Our Insurance Works

Khalid Elhassan June 2, 2025 17 min

A young Michael Malloy, left, and his killers. I09

7. Centralized Policy Tracking

Malloy - Contemporary coverage of the Malloy case — Contemporary coverage of the Malloy case. Imgur

A critical weakness exposed by the Malloy case was the lack of communication between insurance companies – a vulnerability that the “Murder Trust” exploited with ease. They took out multiple life insurance policies on Malloy under an alias, across different companies. Without a centralized system to detect duplication, the conspirators were able to set the stage for a highly profitable fraud.

In the case’s aftermath, insurance regulators and providers recognized the urgent need for a more integrated and transparent system. That led to significant reforms to improve centralized policy tracking. Before that, insurers operated in silos, unable to tell if a person was already insured elsewhere, or if someone was taking out several policies on the same individual for nefarious reasons.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.