1978 – GOV (Senate) – Rights and Remedies of Insurance Policyholders – Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH)

1978 - GOV (Senate) - Rights and Remedies of Insurance Policyholders, Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH)

1978 - GOV (Senate) - Rights and Remedies of Insurance Policyholders, Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH) --- [BonkNote]
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- Part 1 - 1978 0117 and 0118 - Part 1 - Discrimination by Property and Casualty Insurance Companies: The Fairness in the Coverage and Cost of Insurance
- Part 2 - 1978 0510 - The Role of the Policyholder in Mutual Insurance Companies
- Senate - Subcommittee on Citizens and Shareholders Rights and Remedies of the Committee on the Judiciary

(p1087-106) - AP - Distribution of Surplus to Individual Life Insurance Policy Owners, by Joseph Belth
(p1107- ) - LR - Who Owns the Mutuals? Proposals for Reform of Membership Rights in Mutual Insurance and Banking Companies, by Gary P. Kreider

Part 1 - 1978 0117 and 0118 - Part 1 - Discrimination by Property and Casualty Insurance Companies: The Fairness in the Coverage and Cost of Insurance
- (p) - Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH) - In succeeding months the subcommittee may look at other insurance issues. One possible topic is the lack of consumer information on life insurance policies and costs.
- (p4) - Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH) - As I have already suggested, a basic question underlies every insurance issue the subcommittee chooses to examine : Whether the insurance industry should be permitted to retain its exemption from Federal antitrust laws, as the McCarran - Ferguson Act presently allows
- (p126) - Howard METZENBAUM. How long has NAIC been working with these problems?
  - Harold Wilde, Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner - The NAIC has been around in one form or another since 1871.
  - Senator METZENBAUM. Have they been working on them since then? [Laughter]
  - Harold Wilde, Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner - In some areas they have. In some areas they have been sitting on their cans for 100 years.
  - Senator METZENBAUM. Do you think that there is any way that we could convince the NAIC—and since you are the chairman of the committee— that there is a sense of urgency in this area of State, adequate State regulation?
- (p127) - Harold Wilde, Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner - You would not call sex a subject of consideration.
  - The trouble is that you may question as Jim Stone has, and I think right fully, the fact that a category that breaks out a group on the basis of sex may explain a difference between 10 and 5 percent. Yet, 90 or 95 percent in either case would be getting “screwed.”
  - Senator METZENBAUM - That may be an appropriate term when we are talking about this subject.
- (p127) - James M. STONE, Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner - I take issue with what you suggested no one takes issue with: The assertion that all statistical categories which can be actuarily established should be used. I do not think that actuarial soundness is any sort of automatic justification. I am quite sure that if the insurance industry had decided that, instead of age, sex, and territory, it would base its automobile rating system on hair color or in come or religion, they would have found many apparently valid statistical correlations. These are not useful correlations. They are not fair correlations. But I am sure the companies would have found them. I would object very strongly to their using these connections. I feel very much the same way about sex classification. It does not matter to me whether it establishes some sort of pattern on the average.
- (p563) - Not Metzenbaum - Wisconsin does not approve or disapprove... [Bonk: Connect with Wicka, LIIIWG]

(745) - APPENDIX N - ARTICLE FROM THE CAPITOL HILL FORUM, JUNE 16, 1975 - INSURANCE INDUSTRY Costs CONSUMERS BILLIONS YEARLY - (By Dean Sharp)
- -- truth-in-life insurance industry
(p975) - ATTACHMENT B. -FEDERAL AUTHORITIES WITH INSURANCE -RELATED ACTIVITIES
(p976) - Shinn, Metropolitan - The policyholder of a mutual life insurance company is primarily a customer, although he is also a member of the corporation.
(p1016) - Robert Beck, Prudential CEO - We have sharply increased the use of surveys of opinions of policyholders for specific reasons.
- We pick a particular subject that seems to be very important in the news media or in legislative circles or in some of our marketing experiences to test and find out what true policyholder reactions are.
- We have markedly changed many of our practices.
- We do make a much more careful analysis today than we did even just 5 years ago of our complaint program
  - We get some 15,000 complaints a year.
  - They come from all sources.
  - Some of them go to the State regulators as well.
  - We analyze all of these. We respond to them very fast.
  - We do change some of our practices because of them.
  - I am not sure how many exactly I get directed personally at me, but I am told that I get every interesting one, and I cannot recall having received one on the subject of corporate governance.
(p1016) - Senator METZENBAUM. You have done more than any other company, certainly in the insurance field, to make people feel that they are a part of the company.
- As a matter of fact, I have here, an ad from " Ebony” of July 1977, that has gone so far as to really overstate the case. It says, "After you have got a piece of the rock to protect your growing family, get one for your car." Then there is an asterisk, and it says "and your home.” You can even help set up your own retirement.
  - [The ad referred to follows: As a matter of fact, I have here, an ad from " Ebony” of July 1977, that has gone so far as to really overstate the case
- (p1018) - Senator METZENBAUM. The fact is that you do not get a piece of the rock, as I understand it, if you provide protection for your car or your home. Those are actually stock companies - not mutual companies. So that you really oversold a little in the Ebony ad.
- (p1041) - Joseph Belth, Academic - Policyholders of mutual life insurance companies do not have any effective voice in the operations of the companies of which they are theoretically the owners.
  - My statement will be confined to just one aspect of the subject, namely, the determination of the dividends that are paid by mutual life insurance companies to their policyholder owners.