01:30:00 – (p414) – Senator Howard METZENBAUM (D-OH). I just want to get this understanding as to where insurance commissioners think that they have the right to permit some policyholder or many policyholders to have a contract made with company A to be transferred to company B without their notice, without their consent, and without any real concern as to whether the transferee is financially stable.
Where do you get the right? It just shocks my conscience.
Senator Hatch says let them go sue. Wonderful; what a fantastic opportunity that all the policyholders in the country have to go into court in order to protect themselves.
You people supposedly are protecting the interests of the policyholders, and you have just said to me you wouldn’t do anything about it unless all of the policies were transferred, and then you would only conduct a hearing, and I gather that the policyholders themselves would not be notified to be present at that hearing.
I don’t understand you.
I don’t understand the commissioners.
I don’t understand to whom you owe it a responsibility.
Do you owe it to the insurance industry or do you owe it to the policyholders?
If you owe it to the policyholders, how can you permit this to happen?