1986 – ArtWilliamsBest – Fake News – [A.L. Williams] – [VIDEO-YouTube-20:11]

  • 1986 – Consumer Reports Series – June, July, August
    • 1986 06 – Consumer Reports – Life Insurance – p371-402 – 32p
  • 5 – Tax Benefits of Whole Life – Sham
  • A.L. Williams Right Idea, Wrong Execution
    • A.L. Williams = Expensive Term
    • 7 – A.L. Williams Recruits “Greenies” – Gullible – 
  • [  ] – 8:15-11 / 13 – “We worked our butt off for Consumer Reports. We have a policy that I’ve established at A.L. Williams that we will talk with anybody. We got an open door policy. Our competition can come in here and we give them everything we’ve got. They can go to an Opportunity Meeting, they can go to Fast Start School, – we don’t have Opportunity Meetings anymore, they can go to Training Meetings. We give them everything we got. We got nothing hiding… Nothing under the Table. Everything is above board.”
    • “We had Consumer Reports come in here even though they work with Joseph Belth as a consultant  – Public Enemy #1.”
    • 09:37-10:07 – “I tell every reporter that questions me about __?__. Listen you can go and write about whatever you want and it won’t make a flying stink. We gonna win with or without you.  You gonna say whatever you gotta say and we will overcome anything. If I thought some article like this, from some half-butted outfit like this could write something bad about A.L. Williams and destroy this company, I’d sell my stock and I’d hit the door right now today. You understand that?  If we are right none of this stuff is going to matter.”
      • 10 – “I could not break through with Consumer Reports. Every Bad Article that has ever been written about A.L. Williams  it’s written by people that have never come down here -They listen to the competition.  Every Reporter that’s every come down here and sits down with us – we always turn their attitude around. And it works.  We get about a 75% good article”
      • 10:30 – “But we couldn’t break through with Consumer Reports and I couldn’t put my hand on why.”
        • “Well, we found out why. Write this name down now. Look on the first page now … you see Executive Editor – John R. Dorfman. We found out that he is helping this reporter that they sent down here to write this article. We found out that he was Joseph Belth’s Number One Assistant Editor for the three years.”  —   So underhanded
      • 11 – Letter – Barbara King (A.L. Williams) to Trudy Lieberman (Consumer Reports)
  • 13 – Consumer Reports – Pansy Organization
  • 14 – Got em by the Balls – 
  • 15 – Replacing Cash Value
  • 15:15 – Motivation – 
  • 16 – Kill ’em at the Kitchen Table

1989 0526 – NP – The Atlanta Constitution – Tennessee Assails A.L. Williams Marketing Practices

  • 1989 0526 – NP – The Atlanta Constitution – Tennessee Assails A.L. Williams Marketing Practices  —  [BonkNote] 
  • <WishList> – Tennesee Insurance Department Report on A.L. Williams

26 May 1989, Fri The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Newspapers.com

26 May 1989, Fri The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Newspapers.com

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1980 0320 – GOV (Senate) – Cancer Insurance and the Elderly, Birch Bayh (D-IN)

  • 1980 0320 – GOV (Senate) – Cancer Insurance and the Elderly, Birch Bayh (D-IN)  —  [BonkNote]
    • Senate – Subcommittee on Antitrust, Monopoly, and Business Rights conducted joint hearings with the House Select Committee on Aging 
  • (p32-) – Statement of Herbert Denenberg, Former Insurance Commissioner of Pennsylvania
    • (p32-33) – I would summarize by saying cancer insurance is an expensive form of junk, gimmick, Mickey Mouse, limited coverage that gives little value for its premium ; that is inherently inefficient and uneconomical; that often contains tricky, deceptive and unfair provisions, loopholes and fine print : that has often been sold not by fact but by appeals to fear, superstition , and the irrational ; that has been frequently mis-represented in advertisements and sales presentations, and that is often sold to those that are least likely to need its limited protection . 
    • (p35) – When a product is sold irrationally, out of fear, not reason, people buy it who will never benefit from it.
    • (p35) – We found our guides created an embarrassing glow of publicity that often forced high cost and Mickey Mouse companies to change their ways.
    • (p36) – We can survive even if we are free to get information to the public and to freely discuss and criticize abuses and problems in the marketplace. The one thing that is intolerable is a stifling and muzzling of criticism and discussion. 
    • (p36) – American Family Life, of Columbus, Ga., has apparently decided that it has to end the criticism and discussion of its products. So it has virtually admitted it is going to try to silence the critics by filing libel and slander suits.
      • Earlier this year I was sued by American Family Life Assurance Co. for $5 million for making this statement to a Changing Times reporter: “It makes no more sense to take out a cancer policy then it does to take out a leprosy or a chickenpox policy.”
      • Incidentally, I afterward told a reporter that that was the kindest thing I ever said about cancer insurance.
      • I would say if that is libel, virtually everything insurance experts have said about cancer insurance is libel, everything you gentlemen have said in Congress about cancer insurance is libel, and everything in that great 200-page report is libel.
      • In fact, my statement is quite mild compared to what other critics have said. Ralph Nader, for example, described cancer insurance as one of the biggest frauds in the insurance industry.
      • My statement was mild, true, and not libelous.
      • The suit filed against me was clearly frivolous. The intention of the suit was perhaps best suggested by the public statement of John P. Amos, chairman and chief executive officer of the American Family Life Assurance Co., at the time he filed another $275 million suit against ABC for a series it did on cancer insurance.
        • Mr. Amos then said, according to the National Underwriter of January 19, 1980, “We are prepared to answer malicious stone throwers with cannon fire.”
        • When Mr. Amos sued me, he also sued Changing Times and other defendants and made this statement: Anyone who did not and does not now take American Family seriously is a fool and should be fully prepared legally to defend its position. Protecting the integrity, good name and reputation of our company and the equity of our policies from being further maligned must at all times receive top priority. These threats cannot go unanswered and they will not. 
    • (p36) – Mr. Amos is saying in effect anyone who criticizes American Family Life Assurance Co. has to be prepared to defend legally his position and to face ” cannon fire. ” Mr. Amos has apparently decided it is cheaper to file frivolous lawsuits and to attempt to silence critics than to defend cancer insurance in the marketplace of ideas.
      • I think Mr. Amos knows that he can’t defend cancer insurance in the marketplace of ideas. That is why he is not here today.
    • (p37) – He once debated me on Good Morning America, and I guess he decided that wasn’t the right way to go. The right way to go is not to talk about it, to try to silence critics such as myself and perhaps such as this Congress.
      • I think this all raises some important questions. Should a corporation be able to use its resources to silence critics?
      • It should be noted that there are few if any remedies against this kind of lawsuit however frivolous, and the cost of defense can easily run $25,000 to $75,000 and up. Some law firms wanted a $25,000 down payment before they start talking. 
    • (p37) – Here is one business practice aimed directly at the first amendment and even aimed at Congress itself as one of the defendants in the Changing Times lawsuit is a congressional investigator. It is no coincidence that a company which uses improper tactics to sell cancer insurance will also use improper tactics to silence legitimate criticism.

Alan Press

  • 1994 0501 – NYT – Mischief Under the Travelers Umbrella, By Michael Quint – [link]
    • “Over the years since Sandy Weill took charge, we have heard talk of cleaning up the old A. L. Williams image,” said Alan Press, who, while a competitor as a principal in Press, Fishman & Rappaport, a New York insurance agency, is also a well-known expert on life insurance and a former head of the National Association of Life Underwriters. “But there has never been a fundamental commitment to cleaning up the act.” 
  • 1988 0603 – govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1988-pt9/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1988-pt9-8-2.pdf
    • Friday, June 3, 1988 – HON. ROBERT G. TORRICELLI OF NEW JERSEY IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
      • Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Alan Press, who will assume the presidency of the National Association of Life Underwriters [NALU] on September 29, 1988.
      • Mr. Press has been a frequent contributor to LAN magazine, authorizing a series of articles on A.L. Williams that ultimately formed the basis of the NALU video, “Rhetoric vs Reality.” “Dealing with Replacement” a collection of his LAN articles, was published as a brochure by NALU. Over 500,000 copies of the brochure have been distributed.
      • He has been an editor of Probe Magazine.

1999 0428 and 0505 – GOV (House) – The Financial Services Act of 1999, Michael G. Oxley (R-OH)

  • 1999 0428 and 0505 – GOV (House) – The Financial Services Act of 1999, Michael G. Oxley (R-OH)  —  [BonkNote]
    • [PDF-205p, VIDEO-?]
    • House – Committee on Commerce – Subcommittee on Finance and Hazardous Materials 
    • 1999 0505 – Testimony – NAIC – HR 10 and Financial Services Modernization – George Nichols, III (KY) – 24p
    • (p111) – NAIC – Prepared Statement of Commissioner George Nichols III Chairman, Committee on Financial Services Modernization 
      • (p111-112) – Collectively, the insurance premiums paid by American consumers in 1997 amounted to … $107 billion for life insurance…
        • Consumers clearly have an enormous financial and emotional stake in assuring that the promises made by insurance providers are kept.
      • (p112) – State Regulators Are the Only Protection for Insurance Consumers
      • (p112) – HR 10 Prevents State Insurance Regulators from Protecting Consumers
        • NAIC pointed out the following serious flaws in HR 10 during NAIC President and Connecticut Insurance Commissioner George Reider’s testimony before the House Banking and Financial Services Committee on February 11, 1999.
  • (p71) – [Privacy] – Edward J. Markey (D-MA) – And when you drop by your insurance agent a few days later to take out a new life insurance policy, will he, after a few clicks of the mouse on his computer, look over to you and ask, so, can you tell me what all those recent charges are for sky-diving lessons?
    • Well, if we allow all of this to be mixed into one company, each one of these people will have access to your file whether or not they have any basis to have access to it.
    • Now, your friendly banker or broker or insurer in that one company wouldn’t be foolish enough to actually reveal to you that they have gathered all of this sensitive information about you because they know that if they ever did, you would reach right across the desk and throttle them for their insolence in prying into your personal affairs and talking about your daughter, your wife, your mother in those terms. But they do have the file right in front of them even though you didn’t go to them, that broker or that insurance agent or any other part of that affiliate for those services.
    • Under current law, there is nothing, absolutely nothing to prevent them from taking your family secrets and selling or transferring them to their affiliates all in the name of synergies. H.R. 10 does very little to stop the principal harm done by those much touted synergies, the taking of an individual’s most precious private property right, their right to privacy.
    • We are going to form a Congressional privacy caucus. We need one.

Privacy

  • (p71) – Edward J. Markey (D-MA) – And when you drop by your insurance agent a few days later to take out a new life insurance policy, will he, after a few clicks of the mouse on his computer, look over to you and ask, so, can you tell me what all those recent charges are for sky-diving lessons?
    • Well, if we allow all of this to be mixed into one company, each one of these people will have access to your file whether or not they have any basis to have access to it.
    • Now, your friendly banker or broker or insurer in that one company wouldn’t be foolish enough to actually reveal to you that they have gathered all of this sensitive information about you because they know that if they ever did, you would reach right across the desk and throttle them for their insolence in prying into your personal affairs and talking about your daughter, your wife, your mother in those terms. But they do have the file right in front of them even though you didn’t go to them, that broker or that insurance agent or any other part of that affiliate for those services.
    • Under current law, there is nothing, absolutely nothing to prevent them from taking your family secrets and selling or transferring them to their affiliates all in the name of synergies. H.R. 10 does very little to stop the principal harm done by those much touted synergies, the taking of an individual’s most precious private property right, their right to privacy.
    • We are going to form a Congressional privacy caucus. We need one.

1999 0428 and 0505 – GOV (House) – The Financial Services Act of 1999, Michael G. Oxley (R-OH)  —  [BonkNote]

Insurance Sales Activities by Banks

  • 1985 0911 – GOV (House) – The South Dakota Loophole, Jim Leach (R-IA)
    • House – Committee on Banking, Financial and Urban Affairs – Subcommittee on Financial Institutions Supervision, Regulation and Insurance
  • 1994 0203 – Congressional Record – Volume 140, Number 8  – [link] – congress.gov/bound-congressional-record/1994/02/03/senate-section
  • 1999 06 – OCC – Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – 157p
    • A. Insurance Sales Activities/Preemption  
    • Under section 121, well-capitalized national banks may have a wholly owned insurance agency subsidiary that may operate from any location in a state. But H.R. 10 does not repeal the “place of 5,000” restriction that limits banks’ direct insurance sales under current law. Section 104 establishes a complex scheme for determining the scope of permissible state regulation of insurance sales activities by banks and their subsidiaries and affiliates. The provision overturns the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Barnett Bank v. Nelson3 and permits state regulators to impose rules that discriminate against banks and impose significant, anticompetitive, and in many cases virtually incomprehensible sets of restrictions on banks’ ability to sell insurance. Under these new preemption standards, banks will have less protection from state discriminatory insurance sales restrictions than they do today.
      • 3 Barnett Bank v. Nelson, 116 S. Ct. 1103 (1996)
  • 1994 – LR – Insurance Sales Power of National Banks Under 12 U.S.C. § 92, by Lawrence Dunn – 33p
  • Year-? – LR – Independent Insurance Agents of America, Inc. v. Ludwig and Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co. v. Clarke: The Banking-Insurance War in Search of a Judicial Truce, by Catherine Edwards Heigel – 24p
    • p1 – “The war drums are beating in the insurance industry camp once again, and the banking industry is circling its wagons.”1
    • 1 – Philip C. Meyer, Banks Gird for New Fight in Congress over Insurance Powers, BANKNG POL’YREP., Sept. 6, 1993, at 5, 5. – <WishList>
    • 2 The beginning of this modem day debate was sparked by the decision of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Saxon v. Georgia Ass’n of Independent Insurance Agents, Inc., 399 F.2d 1010 (5th Cir. 1968).

Andrew Tobias

24 Apr 1983, Sun The Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee) Newspapers.com

24 Apr 1983, Sun The Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee) Newspapers.com

Primerica – A.L. Williams – Documents

  • 1975-2006 – State of Tennessee – Department of State – Tennessee State Library and Archives – Department of Commerce and Insurance – Commissioner Files, 1975-2006 – RG 388 – 79p
    • p15 – A.L. Williams – Box 11, Folder 8 
  • Year-? – Common Sense – Split Funding – A.L. Williams – 3p
  • Year-? – A.L. Williams Is a Management Company – 4p
    • No. 2 – All the business principles are EASY
      • Any “dumb-dumb” can get a license
      • Any “dumb-dumb” can learn how to sell, how to recruit, etc.
    • No. 5 – NEVER send your new recruits to OUTSIDE TRAINERS •
      • This is as bad as selling trash value life insurance to your people–a real screwing

04 Jul 1990, Wed The Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee) Newspapers.com