Insurer fined for improper (life insurance) policies sold to soldiers

[rainbow4321]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D87FDJJ00.html


A Texas-based insurance company has been ordered to refund $1.3 million to Fort Benning, Ga., soldiers who were improperly sold life insurance policies.

American-Amicable Life Insurance Co. of Texas will refund money from premiums paid by about 900 active-duty soldiers at Fort Benning, said Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, who ordered the refunds Friday. The policies were sold during 2002.

Refunds will include all sales of the Horizon Life policies, Oxendine said. The amounts of the refunds will depend on how much the soldiers paid.

Oxendine said the insurer broke federal and state rules against acting like disinterested financial planners while selling policies to soldiers in training.

[AlamoDemoc]

1. The name should read as:

"American-Imbecile Life Insurance Co. of Texas" AHAHAHAHA

[struggle4progress]

2. The Ownership Society: Improving our profits by ripping off soldiers.

[MaineDem]

3. "Support the Troops" - yeah right!

This should be all over the MSM.

[TahitiNut]

4. In a related story, bank robbers told to return loot.

These people engaged in outright, deliberate FRAUD. They should be jailed. Instead, they're asked merely to return funds they've had for three years, no doubt far less than they actually received as proceeds for a criminal activity.

[rainbow4321]

5. Another article--soldiers thought they had enrolled in a "savings plan"

http://www.ajc.com/money/content/money/1004/19military.html


The American Amicable Life Insurance Co. of Waco, Texas, confirmed on Monday that the Justice Department had subpoenaed documents relating to the company's sale of insurance products to military personnel and other federal employees.

The civil subpoena — which people who participated in discussions about it said was issued by the U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia — was served in late July, after a series in The New York Times disclosed that the company's agents had used misleading sales practices to sell expensive life insurance policies to Iraq-bound recruits at Fort Benning, Ga.

Last month, American Amicable of Texas dismissed three agents involved in the abusive sales at Fort Benning, disciplined a fourth agent and offered to return premiums that soldiers there had paid for their policies — $1,200 a year for death benefits of less than $30,000. Several young soldiers who bought the policies said they thought they had enrolled in a savings or investment plan.
Michael S. Blume, an assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, said Monday that his office "can't confirm or deny the existence of any investigation, as a matter of policy."


American Amicable Life Insurance is one of four companies owned by American Amicable Holding, also based in Waco. Last year, its sister company, Pioneer American Insurance Co. quietly offered refunds to more than 340 Marines at Camp Pendleton, Calif., after base legal officers complained about misleading sales tactics. Additional refunds may be owed to soldiers at other bases where the agents at Fort Benning also worked, according to insurance regulators in Georgia, who are conducting a broad investigation of insurance sales on military bases in that state.

[Vidar]

7. Naw, that qualifies them for a cabinet post.

[Vidar]

8. double post

[mbperrin]

6. This company should receive the death penalty.

If we simply killed company charters of fraudulent carriers, they would quit. Until then, they will take their gains off this money and laugh all the way to the bank. The refunds don't include any penalty or interest which could have accumulated, and overall the company has profited.

Therefore, they will keep doing the same.

Kill them. Kill them now.

And put the CEO in jail.

[Streetdoc270]

9. sad thing is

this happens a lot around military bases. We just had an issue near camp LeJune where car dealers would come and pick up the marines and drive them to lots in VA and if they did not buy a can at inflated prices they had to find a ride back to the base. These low-lifes should be exposed and run out of business! (How much do you want to bet that the company is owned by Rep. backers?)