LOOK

  • My staff has conducted a major investigation of these issues.
    • I must say today that I was shocked when I saw its findings.  (p1)

--  Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH)

1979 0524 - GOV (Senate) - Cost Disclosure in Life Insurance, Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH)  ---  [BonkNote]

  • (p21) - Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH) 
    • You thought the replacement policy was guaranteed to cost you a level amount each year, but later realized the premium could change.
    • Now were you not told exactly what was guaranteed and what was subject to change about the replacement policy?
  • Gloria NEWBERRY - Consumer / Policyholder - Parkville, MO
    • No, sir. We were told that our premiums would remain the same.
    • At the time the policy came, I, like most consumers, I feel, put the policy away in the safe.
    • I did not even look at it, because it had been explained upfront at the time I purchased it, I thought, what would happen.
    • It was only at a later date that I pulled it out of the safe and started studying it and realized that none of what I had been told was true.

1993 0525 - GOV (Senate) - When Will Policyholders Be Given The Truth About Life Insurance?, Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH)  ---  [BonkNote]

  • What I noticed was there is a requirement for in-force illustrations, and people may have thought they bought one thing and whenever you have to give them an in-force illustration with a current disciplined scale, they're going to realize they bought something else.
    • I think many companies will have serious problems with policyholder retention.

Mark J. Greene, FSA. MAAA, Supervising Actuary, New York State Insurance Department

1995 - SOA - Practical Illustrations and Nonforfeiture Values, Society of Actuaries - 14p

2010-Blumenthal-Depo-I-would-have-understood if I had looked at the Illustration
  • (p156-157) - [Look / Language]
  • Q  So if you had taken a look at the policy, you might have realized you were mistaken; correct?
  • A Might have.
  • Q We just don't know because you didn't take a look at the policy; correct?
  • A We don't know because we don't know what the language is in the policy.
  • Q And we don't know whether you would have understood it because you didn't take a look at it at the time; is that fair?
  • A Yes.

2014 0416 – DOC 809 – Trial Transcript – Walker v LSW – 236p

  • I am on this panel principally as Chairman of the ACLI Subcommittee on Cost Comparisons.
    • Much of our work has dealt with the issue of illustrating Nonguaranteed Elements.
    • As a backdrop, I want to quote from a January 1988 Financial Planning article. The article is entitled "Future Shock" by Harry Lew with the sub-heading:
      • "What will happen when a generation of insurance buyers begins comparing unrealistic illustrations with the actual performance of their policies?
      • Industry leaders would prefer not to find out."
    • The article goes on to say that "... veterans of the insurance industry are quietly expressing concern about the way illustrations are being used in today's market."
  • Often the numbers on the computer printout contain nonguaranteed projections on how the policy will perform in future years and tend to convince the client he is getting a better deal than he really is.
    • Some have gone so far as to call even well-designed illustrations the industry's "great lie."
  • Agents who continue to give much credence to nonguaranteed projections may be setting themselves up for a fall as policies fail to live up to the expectations of a whole generation of insurance customers.

--  Larry R. Robinson, Chairman of the ACLI Subcommittee on Cost Comparisons

1988 - SOA - Actuarial Opinion on Non-Guaranteed Elements, Society of Actuaries - 12p

  • Reliance is not justified if even a "cursory reading" of the written contract would have shown any alleged oral representations to be in conflict with the written agreement's plain terms.

1997 - Legal Case - Grove v Principal - BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO DISMISS TIIE CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT - CASE NO. 4-97-CV-70224 (Iowa) - 115p

  • Actuaries - AAA / SOA
    • Any Plan, Any Ratebook Plan, Premium/Benefit/Results
  • ACLI - Dynamic, Design your own
    • Tools
      • Annual Report
      • Illustration
      • Premium Grid
  • ACLI - Responsible for hard earned money
    • Do you believe in personal responsibility
    • Duty to Read
    • Businessman, Contracts, yeah, but this is life insurance
  • ACLI -
    • LIIIWG - PO - Permanent
    • Blumenthal - I thought it was y'know for Life
  • My attention was incidentally called to the subject of life insurance some year and a half ago, and when I found upon what a peculiar and very simple theory it is based, I was utterly amazed to think how little the thing was generally understood, and that the insuring public were utterly ignorant of what it was all about.
  • The committee of which I am chair man has before it for consideration this peculiar element of life insurance which I refer to, and I think if the members of the committee will closely attend to and study over that matter, they will have different views when they come back of the theory of life insurance from those which they had when they came here.  (p128)

-- Gustavus W. Smith - (Kentucky Insurance Commissioner)

1871- NAIC Proceedings - Vol 1 -