1990s

• 1991 0108 - NYT - Talking Business with Kramer, Author of Insurance Study; Comparing Risks: Banks vs. Insurers, by Michael Quint - [link]
  • A recent study commissioned by the Insurance Information Institute, "Rating the Risks, Assessing the Solvency Threat in the Financial Services Industry," concluded that the insurance industry's problems were not nearly so severe as those in banking. Orin S. Kramer, a consultant based in New York, discussed the study, which he wrote.
    • Q. Is a solvency crisis likely for any of the three industries you studied?
    • A. It is important to distinguish between theoretical possibilities and realistic probabilities. While I can imagine conditions that might produce insolvency for a major insurance company, I think that is extremely improbable over the next several years, and a generalized insurance solvency crisis is even less likely. 
• 1991 0511 - NYT - California Curbs First Capital Life, by Richard W. Stevenson- [link]
• 1991 0521 - NYT - Mutual Benefit Life And Cigna Ratings, by-? - [link]
• 1991 0601 - NYT - Shielding Insurer From Its Parent, By Eric N. Berg - [link]
• 1991 0717 - NYT - Opinion: Insurance Woes Are No Disaster, Is the life insurance industry another savings and loan fiasco in the making?, (Mutual Benefit Life), by-? - [link]
• 1991 0724 - NYT - Life Insurer Failures Point Up Flaws in Safety Nets of States, by Eric M. Berg - [link]
• 1991 0903 - NYT - Worry Over Retirement Funds, By Eric N. Berg - [link]
  • GIC's, Executive Life, Mutual Benefit
• 1993 0307 - NYT - States Set Fines for Met Life, by Michael Quint - [link]
  • The Florida Report, Thomas Tew - Lawyer, Tom Gallagher - Florida Insurance Commissioner
• 1993 0326 - NYT - Insurers Cited on Barring Rebates, By Peter Kerr - [link]
• 1993 1030 - NYT - Insurance; Confusion Over Policies Leads to Talk of Change, by Leonard Sloane - [link]
  • Buyers of life insurance are entitled to descriptions of their policies and how they work.
  • After a long period of consumer complaints, Congressional hearings and industry reports on the insurance tables, widely known as illustrations, state regulators are preparing to take action. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners intends to adopt by March disclosure guidelines for illustrations that the states can use as a model to create their own laws.
  • Judy Faucett
    • While acknowledging some abuses in illustrations, insurers and actuaries say buyers often misunderstand what is being presented to them.
      • "Life insurance is not like a bank account where you know what the interest rate is going to be," said Judy Faucett, a partner in Coopers & Lybrand and chairwoman of the task force on illustrations for the American Academy of Actuaries.
      • "An illustration is not a guarantee, or even a best estimate, of how that policy is going to look in 20 years."
• 1994 0202 - NYT - New York State Warns Insurers, by Michael Quint - [link]
  • The New York State Insurance Department warned life insurance companies yesterday that if they failed to control their agents and stop improper advertising, the department could require that some companies submit advertising for approval before use.
  • Although no other company has been accused of improper sales tactics on the same scale as Metropolitan's Tampa office, the industry is worried that the Metropolitan affair could be the catalyst for new Federal regulation
  • In addition to Metropolitan's activities, there have been long-simmering complaints about agents using misleading examples to show financial benefits of life insurance.
• 1994 0227 - NYT - Your Own Account; What's Wrong With This Picture?, By Mary Rowland - [link]
  • Glenn Daily, James Hunt, Lapse-Supported, Guarantees Only, NAIC, Illustrations
• 1994 0306 - NYT - Your Own Account; Putting Life Insurance Into Focus, By Mary Rowland - [link]
• 1994 0308 - NYT - Regulators Seek Limits on Insurer Sales Pitches, by Michael Quint  ---  [BonkNote]  ---  [link]
  • NAIC, Illustrations, NALU
  • State insurance regulators are moving closer to sharply limiting how sales agents may describe the future benefits of life insurance policies, despite strong objections from insurance companies and agents.
  • The rule is intended to curb the widespread use by agents of computer printouts of insurance policy benefits that exaggerate how the policy's value grows as the company pays dividends to the holder. When interest rates declined in the last five years, many projections made in earlier years proved to be far too optimistic.
  • The insurance commissioners are not expected to recommend the proposal as a law that states should pass until June. But for now, Mr. Lyons said, "the public's and the politicians' perceptions of sales abuses have been so raised that people are ready to accept more radical approaches."
  • Insurance companies have, however, persuaded regulators to change some parts of the proposed rules. One idea, to give consumers the right to sue insurance companies about misleading sales tactics, has been deleted.
  • [NALU - NAIFA] - William N. Albus, senior general counsel for the National Association of Life Underwriters, which represents life insurance sales agents, said illustrations of future benefits "are essential to explaining how a policy works."
    • He suggested that agents should be allowed to project current dividends into the future and include an example of how a policy would look if its dividends were reduced by one percentage point.
• 1994 0313 - NYT - Your Own Account; Replacing a Policy May Be a Bad Idea, By Mary Rowland - [link]
• 1994 0328 - NYT - Transfers By Insurers Under Fire, [Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH)], by Michael Quint - [link]
• 1994 0403- NYT - In Defense of Policy Illustrations - To the Editor, From Ray Browne - [link]
  • re: Mary Rowland - Series of 3 Articles - Your Own Account, Feb. 27, March 6 and March 13
  • ...partner in the Browne Company, an insurance firm in Philadelphia and Washington, and a former president of the Greater Washington chapter of the American Society of Chartered Life Underwriters and Chartered Financial Consultants.
• 1994 0622 - NYT - Rebuke and Revenge at Met Life, (Rick Sabo - Agent), by Michael Quint - [link]
• 1994 0629 - NYT - Met Life Is Said to Be Facing U.S. Investigation for Fraud, by Michael Quint - [link]
  • The inquiry by the United States Attorney's office comes as Met Life has been besieged with lawsuits by former customers contending they were misled, and by former agents who say the company wrongfully terminated their employment.
  • In one recent suit, a former agent, Robert M. Slade of Happauge, L.I., said the company's unwillingness to distinguish between the misleading sales practices in the Tampa office and tactics of other agents who sold life insurance as a retirement product had opened the door to groundless complaints.
• 1995 0415 - NYT - Mutual Life Set to Name New Chief, By Michael Quint - [link]
• 1995 0526 - NYT - 6-State Force to Open Inquiry Into Insurance Sales Practices, by Michael Quint - [link]
• 1995 0719 - NYT - Taking On Insurance Giants, by Michael Quint - [link]
  • Ronald R. Parry, a soft-spoken lawyer from Kentucky - Class Actions
    • Prudential, MetLife, ....Mr. Parry has filed suits against six other insurers, including New York Life, Equitable Life Assurance Society and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance.
    • The lawsuits accuse the companies of using misleading sales tactics to sell life insurance as a retirement or savings plan (the same charge that led Met Life to settle the class-action lawsuit and pay a related $20 million fine to state regulators last year). The suits also say there were other misdeeds relating to life insurance sales.
       
• 1995 0825 - NYT - New York State Opens 2 Doors On Insurance, by Michael Quint - [link]
  • Monolines, financial guarantee companies, MBIA
  • One ruling, which was opposed by some large New York-based insurance companies, allows financial guarantee companies that are best known for insuring municipal bonds to expand into the business of insuring investment contracts issued by insurance companies.
  • Another ruling, which was favored by some New York insurers, opens the door for them to provide guarantees on interest and principal of investment contracts where the assets backing the contract are controlled by the pension fund, not the insurance company. That arrangement, which protects the pension fund from losses caused by market downturns, has been sold by insurers outside New York and by some banks as a way to earn fees without owning the billions of dollars of investments that would inflate balance sheets.
• 1995 0929 - NYT - Could This Be You?, by Michael Quint - [link]
  • David Woods and other agents created the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education, with the convenient acronym of LIFE.
• nytimes.com/1996/01/21/business/investing-it-a-way-to-cash-in-as-insurers-get-the-urge-to-merge.html
• 1996 0613 - NYT - Insurers Lobby, Quietly, to Alter Consumer Law, By Clifford J. Levy - [link]
  • Agent Commissions, New Law in New York
  • Asked why consumers were not involved, Mr. Muhl said: "I am not sure that you are aware of one of my roles. One of my tasks is to represent the consumer's interests. So the consumer was well represented."
    • Consumer groups scoffed at that.
    • "I don't think it makes sense to override these controls without our side having an opportunity to say, 'Hey, there are some things that we want,' " said Robert Hunter, a former insurance commissioner in Texas who is director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, a coalition of 250 consumer groups.
    • "They knew that they could have worked with us," Mr. Hunter said. "They have just come in and tried to slam-dunk this."
  • Edward J. Muhl = Superintendent of the State Insurance, Department
• 1996 1218 - NYT - Prudential Policyholders' Deadline Nears, by Joseph B. Treaster - [link]
  • The last opportunity for 10.7 million Prudential Insurance policyholders to battle the company on their own over whether they were cheated by agents is fast approaching.
• 1997 0311 - NYT - Life Insurance Settlement (Prudential), by Andy Newman - [link]
• 1997 0525 - NYT -  A Tale of Unraveled Fortune, by Joseph B. Treaster - [link]
• 1997 0828 - NYT - For Plaintiffs, More of Same in Insurance Accords, By Reed Abelson - [link]
• 1998 0102 - NYT - Financial Services Consolidate, but Regulation Is Still Fragmented, By Joseph B. Treaster - [link]
  • Many financial experts argue that insurance regulation is the weakest link in the system. Generally, the state insurance regulators have tiny staffs and tiny budgets compared with the enormous companies they oversee. 
  • Neil D. Levin, New York's top insurance regulator and a newcomer to the field, takes a critical view of the system.
    • Mr. Levin, a former investment banker who was appointed Superintendent of Insurance last February after serving as Commissioner of Banking, says that unless the state-by-state system of insurance regulation becomes much more ''effective, efficient and coordinated,'' the creation of a Federal insurance regulator ''is going to start to look pretty compelling.''
• 1999 0416 - NYT - Metro Business; Life Insurance Refunds, By The Associated Press, [MetLife, Richard Blumenthal, deceptive sales practices, churning]  -  [link]