Pentagon
- 1998 0918 - Washington Post - Pentagon Bars Life Insurance Firm Because of 'Deceptive' Practices, (Academy Life Insurance Co.), by - [link] --- Military
- ⇒ Academy Life Insurance Co.
- A series of articles 24 years ago published by the Army/Navy/Air Force Times documented many of the same practices that Defense Department officials find objectionable today.
- A confidential report by the Army's inspector general, completed in February, described chronic violations in dealings between Army officials and a host of private organizations.
- Outside the Pentagon too, the question of insurance sales to military personnel has attracted heightened legal action. The U.S. attorney's office in Washington state is prosecuting two other insurers that specialize in the military market -- American Fidelity Life Insurance Co. and Trans World Assurance Co. -- on charges of attempting to defraud service members by marketing life insurance policies as savings plans.
- The Pentagon's decision to ban Academy was based in part on two investigations, one ending in July 1996 by the U.S. Army/Europe's inspector general, the other completed last November by attorneys at the naval base in Jacksonville, Fla.
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The Army report quoted one soldier as saying that the insurance agent had told him his policy would accumulate to a cash value of $100,000 to $200,000 after 10 years.
"When the soldier requested a policy from Academy Life, he testified, Academy Life would not send him a policy but only a certificate of insurance," the report said. "Finally, the soldier sent in $9,555 over five years and when he canceled his policy, he received only $1,033.