Dwight Bartlett

  • Dwight K. Bartlett
  • 1983-84 – President, SOA, Society of Actuaries
  • 1990’s – Maryland Insurance Commissioner
  • (p588) – Len Stillman (Utah) asked why consumers who purchase investment type insurance products should be afforded protection that other investors are not offered.
  • Commissioner Bartlett (Maryland) responded that there is a perception that products offered by life insurers are more secure than other investments.

1995-1, NAIC Proceedings – Guaranty Fund Issues Working Group B of the Insolvency (EX5) Subcommittee – September 11, 1995

    • (p16) – Willis B. Howard, Jr., NOLHGA – National Organization of Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Associations:
      • I’d like to respond briefly to my honorable friend, Commissioner Bartlett.
      • Dwight, the guarantee association system works, and it works well.
    • Dwight K. Bartlett III, Maryland Insurance Commissioner:
      • Are you going to tell me, Bill, in all honesty that you really believe that the policyholders of Executive Life and Mutual Benefit Life have been well-served?
      • For example, with Mutual Benefit, if you opted out of that rehabilitation plan you get, as I recall, 55 cents on the dollar of your account value.
        • If you opt into the plan, you agreed to subject yourself to a moratorium period, which means you do not get full access to the cash values of your policy until the next century.
      • Are you going to say that’s meaningful coverage for those policyholders?
      • ⇒  I think that’s ridiculous.

1994 – SOA – VASP – Introduction and Overview: Current Activities of NAIC’s Life and Health Actuarial Task Force, VASP941 – Society of Actuaries – 110p

  • The second matter has to do with the concerns I have expressed since I became Maryland’s insurance commissioner with respect to the sufficiency of the state-based guaranty association system for life insurance companies to protect the policyholders of financially impaired companies.
  • I have been very vocal in expressing concern that the rehabilitation plans for Executive Life and Mutual Benefit Life demonstrate vividly the inadequacy of the present system.
  • I have been trying to generate discussion of this subject in the actuarial profession in a variety of ways, for example, the article I wrote, which was published in the January/February 1994 issue of Contingencies. <Wishlist>
  • I have been disappointed at the lack of response to my attempts. I encourage anyone who is interested in the subject to review my article and join the debate

—   Dwight K. Bartlett, Maryland Insurance Commissioner

1994 – SOA – VASP – Introduction and Overview: Current Activities of NAIC’s Life and Health Actuarial Task Force, VASP941 – Society of Actuaries – 110p

  • 1995 06 – SOA – Actuaries in regulation influencing the future of industry, by Dwight K. Bartlett, III, The Actuary, act-1995-vol29-iss06-bartlett – Society of Actuaries – 3p
    • The NAIC has recently charged its Insolvency (Ex5) Subcommittee with considering the need for reforms.
  • (p6) – The proposal for fund-based life insurance polices such as universal life links gross premiums with cash values in a way that does not exist for traditional forms of life insurance.
  • For fund-based policies the minimum cash value is the gross premium accumulated at a minimum interest rate specified in the law less mortality and expense charges subject to maximums specified in the law and less the unamortized portion of maximum surrender charges.
  • The implication of this is that, when a company decides to increase its gross premiums for these types of policies, it will cause necessarily an increase in the minimum cash surrender benefits for the policy.
    • That is not true for traditional types of policies.

—   Dwight K. Bartlett, Maryland Insurance Commissioner

1994 – SOA – VASP – Introduction and Overview: Current Activities of NAIC’s Life and Health Actuarial Task Force, VASP941 – Society of Actuaries – 110p