New South Life Insurance Company

  • 1977 0525 - The Washington Post - How an Insolvent Firm Keeps Selling Insurance, By John F. Berry - [link]
  • 1983 10 - SOA - The Actuary - New South Life: The Sequel, Ed. Note: This Contributors Identification is known to the Editor, Society of Actuaries - 8p
    • Among Points for Actuaries to ponder:
      • The rescue operation might have failed especially if new policyholders had understood that the company might, as it did, go out of business.
      • Collectively policyholders fared well, but some, who would have preferred to take cash and accept their loss, and were entitled by statute to do so, suffered for the common good.
      • What, one wonders, is a policyholder’s obligation to other policyholders?
  • 1983 06 - SOA - Editorial - The Actuary - The New South Life Case, EJM (Ernest J Moorhead (Jack)), Society of Actuaries - 2p
    • The New South Life happens to be one of the (mercifully) few life companies in which a major deIicit has been directly linked to miscalculation of policy reserves.
      • Two sources from ‘which the underlying facts are readily obtainable are:
        1. “New South Life: A Case Study”, by James L Athearn, in the April 1973 issue (Vol. XIX, No. 5) of Business and Economic Review; published by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of South Carolina; -<WishList>
        2. “Report of the American Academy of Actuaries Committee Regarding The New South Life Insurance Company”, a manuscript dated August 30, 1973. - <WishList>
      • Until recently, the second of these, two documents was kept confidential for reasons associated with the life company’s rehabilitation.
      • We are pleased to learn that secrecy about it is no longer necessary; now the excellent work done ten years ago by an actuarial trio, Messrs. John M. Bragg, Delos H. Christian, and AIlan F. Lebourveau (who died in 1982), can and should belatedly receive our profession’s recognition.
  • 1977 0912, 0913 and 0914 - GOV (Senate) - Federal Insurance Act of 1977  ---  [BonkNote]
    • [PDF-813p-GooglePlay] 
    • (p4) - Senator Brooke (R-MA) - On May 25 the Washington Post carried a story entitled, “How an Insolvent Firm Keeps Selling Insurance.” - (1977 0525 - The Washington Post - How an Insolvent Firm Keeps Selling Insurance, By John F. Berry - [link])(
      • According to that article, as of last May, the approximately 175,000 policyholders of New South Life Insurance Co. of Columbia, S.C., were unable to exercise their rights to obtain the cash surrender value of their policies or to borrow against their policies because since 1971 New Southland been insolvent and policyholders' funds are being used, interest free, to bail out the company and its owners.
      • Yet New South salemen are still selling policies to unsuspecting buyers who apparently are unaware of the company's financial condition.

Page Six to the Rescue regard page 6 as a nuisance. But that nuisance once put me on the scent of : -
The demise of New South Life (Edi- egregious computer goof-up in recorc _
torial, June issue) probably could have ing terminations, to the tune of a quarter
been prevented or at least postponed if of a million dollars.
the actuary had done a conscientious job
on page 6, “Analysis of Increase in ReRobert C. Tookey
serves”. We consulting actuaries often