ACLI - 2000s - Snippets

  • Michael Lovendusky (American Council of Life Insurers -- ACLI) .... said the Unfair Trade Practices Act is the bedrock of market practices.

2001-1, NAIC Proceedings, Suitability Working Group 

  • Today, life insurers compete directly with non-insurance financial services institutions, such as banks and mutual funds.  (p12)

--  William B. Fisher, Vice President And Associate General Counsel, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, On Behalf of the American Council Of Life Insurers  (ACLI)

2001 0621 - GOV (House) - Insurance Product Approval: The Need for Modernization, Richard H. Baker (R-LA) - [PDF-208p, VIDEO-?]

  • 2002 0731 - GOV (Senate) - Class Action Litigation, Patrick Leahy (D-VT) - [PDF-178p] 
    • (p55) - AEGON - Statement of Patrick Baird
      • The life insurance industry has experienced over a decade of abusive class actions.
      • In one of the more recent examples of such class action abuses.
      • State courts in New Mexico are certifying nationwide classes of plaintiffs for the manner in which their premiums are disclosed in their policies.
      • These cases are being certified even though State Commissioners of Insurance reviewed and approved these policy disclosures.
      • These class action cases have steadily weakened the very fabric of State regulation of insurance as the State judges' decisions have had national implications for insurers in other states.
      • The result of nationwide regulation through targeted class action litigation has indirectly usurped the role and authority of the State Commissioners of Insurance.
    • Senate - Committee on the Judiciary
    • ⇒  2002 0804 - ThinkAdvisor - Class Action Suits Have Weakened State Regulation, ACLI Tells Congress, By Steven Brostoff - [link]
      • Class action lawsuits have steadily weakened the very fabric of state regulation of insurance, says the American Council of Life Insurers, Washington.
      • ACLI says the life insurance industry has experienced more than a decade of abusive class actions.
      • “The result of nationwide regulation through targeted class action litigation has indirectly usurped the role and authority of state commissioners of insurance,” ACLI says.
  • ''We're suffering competitively,'' said Frank Keating, the executive director of the American Council of Life Insurers, the industry's biggest and most influential trade group. ''There is no way we can be nimble and responsive in the marketplace with an ossified regulatory process.''
  • Gary E. Hughes, the trade group's general counsel and its field commander for regulation, said change was needed urgently. ''The status quo is killing us,'' he said.
  • ''This is such an important issue to C.E.O.'s that they are stepping out from behind their trade association and taking this argument directly to Congress themselves,'' Mr. Hughes said.
  • To achieve their goal of federal regulation, the insurers have come up with an approach that would give companies a choice between switching to regulation by Washington or staying with the states. The plan, which they refer to as an ''optional federal charter,'' offers something for everyone in hopes of creating powerful support and undermining opposition.
  • State regulators insist they are making progress in reducing inefficiency; the life insurers disagree. ''There is an enormous gulf between what the states apparently think they are doing and what the industry thinks is a very substantial lack of progress,'' said Mr. Hughes of the life insurance trade group.
  • In a study of state insurance regulation in September, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that states concentrated on the financial stability of insurance companies rather than on whether customers were being treated fairly. Moreover, the report said, some companies were examined for financial strength frequently ''and others not at all.''
    • [Bonk: 2003 09 - GAO - Common Standards and Improved Coordination Needed to Strengthen Market Regulation - gao.gov/products/gao-03-433 - Full Report - 53p

2003 1226 - NYT - Insurers Want One Regulator Instead of 50, By Joseph B. Treaster - [link]

  • As a result of the declining interest rates during the first ten years, the amount accumulated in the deposit fund after ten years is less than anticipated when the contract was issued, and less than necessary to keep the contract in force for the long term if the original "target premium" assumptions were continued.
  • Industry experience indicates that policyholders will increase their renewal premium payments in order to maintain their valuable insurance and minimum deposit interest rights.
  • For purposes of these Illustrations, we assume that the policyowner wishes to keep the UL contract in force and increases the renewal premium payments from duration ten.
  • Therefore, after the tenth year, an increase in the rate of premium payments into the deposit fund is illustrated sufficient to provide funds to maintain the contract in force under the changed financial conditions.|
  • In practice, policyholders are continually modifying their behavior to reflect changing circumstances.  (p88)

2004 - ACLI/ IAA - Renewal Premiums and Discretionary Participation Features of a Life Insurance, A Joint Research Project - 52p

  • ''Anything that is unethical or inappropriate should not exist, period,'' Mr. Keating said. (the former governor of Oklahoma, who is president of the American Council of Life Insurers)
  • But ''someone who is mature enough to fight and quite possibly die for their country,'' he added, ''should be freely able to decide how much and what kind of life insurance they should have.''

2004 0720 - NYT - Basic Training Doesn't Guard Against Insurance Pitch to G.I.'s, by Diana B. Henriques - [link]

  • We at the ACLI are glad that the revelations of this summer have finally opened communications among those whose responsibility it is to solve the reported problems.
    • For more than a year the ACLI has been aware of allegations of misbehavior.
    • We have sought attention for them at the highest administrative levels.
    • We surely do not want our many good companies and agents unfairly tarred by a brush intended for a few.
  • Burns Bill
    • ...the description of the product in the legislation goes far beyond contractual mutual funds to prohibit all kinds of insurance and annuities that have a variable element in them.
  • Further, it is in the complete absence of effective enforcement of all relevant rules that has caused some of our soldiers to become victims of scams.

--  2004 0909 - ACLI - Frank Keating, President of the American Council of Life Insurers - Testimony - 6p

2004 0909 - GOV (House) - G.I. Finances: Protecting Those Who Protect Us - [PDF-176p, VIDEO-?]

  • That is why we strongly support the comprehensive approach to improving insurance regulation reflected in the legislation that Senators Sununu and Johnson have proposed.
  • Having an Optional Federal Charter operating alongside a gradually improving State system of regulation seems to us to be the right way to go.
  • And it parallels the successful dual chartering mechanism we see in the commercial banking sector.

--  John D. Johns, on behalf of the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI)

2006 0711 - GOV (Senate) - Insurance Regulation Reform - [PDF-152, 

  • [Long-Term Care]
  • ACLI - “There is a tiny percentage of disgruntled policyholders filing complaints,” said Frank A. Keating, president of the American Council of Life Insurers, an industry trade group. “To the extent that this probe will shine a light on companies that are making mistakes, that will be a positive thing.”

2007 0525 - Tuscaloosa News - Congress Putting Long-Term Care Under Scrutiny, by Charles Duhigg - [link]

  • The president of the ACLI and the former Democratic governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating, called the OFC “the No. 1 issue facing the life insurance industry in the U.S.”
  •  The ACLI... unveiled a study last week that concluded a federal regulator would generate up to $5.7 billion in savings for the 284 life insurers analyzed. <WishList>
  • Keating said the ACLI would keep on pressing its case with Aflac: “We will continue to attempt to persuade them that the devil they know is worse than the devil they don’t know.”

2007 0605 - TheHill - Insurance Industry Divided Over Federal Regulation, by Jessica Holzer - [link]

  • Ed ROYCE (R-CA)
    • So we have the SEC. We have the Fed. We have the OCC that all serve to get financial instruments to represent the interests of the banking industry in terms of gaining access to markets overseas, and you are speculating that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners is not going to have that same clout or seat at the table in terms of opening those markets for competition?
  • Christopher M. Condron, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company, on behalf of the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI)
    • They just cannot.
    • You know, they cannot agree on what the reserving requirements will be on universal life insurance policies, or when they do agree, they cannot get all of the States to go along, and that is the  frustration, I think, Commissioner Bell and all of the commissioners have always had with the NAIC.  (p163)

2007 1003 - GOV (House) - The Need for Insurance Regulatory Reform - [PDF-163p

  • John PEARSON (ACLI) -  Our records say less than 10 percent of complaints are life insurance and life insurance-related.
    • Having said that, however, we frankly think the current network does a very good job of handling consumer complaints.
    • We would prefer for more uniformity across States with some of these model laws that have passed.
    • But, frankly, we look at it as something that we could build upon as through the Federal bill that we would expect nothing less than an exemplar customer complaint and recourse.  (p29)

2008 0729 - GOV (Senate) - The State of the Insurance Industry: Examining the Current Regulatory and Oversight Structure - The Current State of Insurance Regulation, Oversight and Ways to Enhance Consumer Protection, Promote Competition and Efficiency, and to Address What Role, if any, the Federal Government should play - [PDF-472p, VIDEO-Senate-Error] 

  • The federal government must develop an insurance regulatory presence with the capacity to monitor the insurance marketplace and identify risks to consumers, the industry and the broader financial system before they reach the “crisis stage,” ACLI President Frank Keating says in a response to the letter.
  • “Life insurance is a $5 trillion industry which affects the lives of almost all Americans and closely interacts with banks and securities firms,” Keating says.
    • “Consumers cannot afford a regulatory structure in which federal financial regulators are effectively walled-off from overseeing the insurance marketplace.”
2009 - ThinkAdvisor - ACLI Counters Anti-OFC Letter, By Arthur D. Postal - [link]
 
⇒  2009 - ACLI Letter - <WishList?
⇒ 2009 0123 - Congress (Royce) to DOTT (Geithner) - 3p
⇒ 2009 0211 - Consumer Watchdog to DOTT (Geithner) - 3p
  • (p20) - Life insurers are the single largest source of corporate bond financial, and hold approximately 18 percent of total U.S. corporate bonds.

--  Statement of Patrick S. Baird, Chief Executive Officer, Aegon USA, LLC, On Behalf of the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI)

[PDF-181p,

  • 2009 0624 - (GOV - House) - Regulatory Restructuring: Enhancing Consumer Financial Products Regulation
    • [PDF-286p, VIDEO-?]
    • (p56) - Gary Hughes (ACLI) - So why don’t we support placing insurance products under the jurisdiction of an agency like the CFPA? (CFPB - Consumer Finance Protection Bureau)
    • House - Committee on Financial Services
  • The year certainly tested the ACLI leadership.
  • Frank Keating, its president and CEO, related the many actions he and his team took to work with federal officials to provide some level of support for affected life companies.
    • "The thing that concerned us, because we did not have an FDIC behind us, we have a system of guaranty funds in the states, if there were a run on life insurance companies, what would that do to us as an industry?
    • Because we were state-regulated, we were very concerned, if not alarmed, that the Fed, the FDIC, perhaps the SEC, obviously the Treasury Department, might have a high level of ignorance and not appreciate that individual companies within our industry may not be systemic, but we as an industry are."

2009 1026 - InsuranceNewsNet - Relieved to Have Survived a Dangerous Year, ACLI Members Look Ahead, By Ron Panko, senior associate editor, Best's Review - [link]