Florida Announces Multistate Targeted Market Conduct Examination Report on MassMutual Financial Group
Aug 20, 2013
Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty announced today, August 20, 2013, that a Report has been released on the Multistate Targeted Market Conduct Examination of MassMutual Financial Group (“MassMutual”).
To view the Report, click here.
The examination of MassMutual, one of the largest insurers in the United States, found that the company used information from the U.S. Social Security Death Master File (“DMF”) to both make payments to beneficiaries of life insurance policies and to stop annuity payments. As a result of this positive examination report outcome, a multistate regulatory settlement agreement was deemed unnecessary.
The examination began in December 2012 and was managed by New Hampshire as part of the ongoing efforts by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Life/Annuities Claim Settlement Practices Task Force (“Task Force”), which is chaired by Commissioner McCarty. In addition to Florida, the other lead states on the examination were California, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Dakota and Pennsylvania.
The Task Force is focused on investigating how life and annuity insurers have utilized the DMF to identify deceased life insurance policyholders and annuitants, as well as the efforts these insurers have undertaken to either pay beneficiaries or report and remit unclaimed property to the appropriate agencies.
This examination report follows an announcement earlier this week of a multistate settlement with ING, the seventh insurer to enter into a regulatory settlement agreement with state insurance regulators addressing this issue.
As of now, participating state insurance regulators have either reached settlements or concluded the investigation of eight of the top 20 Task Force-targeted companies, constituting 42.5 percent of the total market.
The Task Force will continue to focus on examining the remaining top 32 insurers.
For more information about this issue, visit the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s Life Claim Settlement Practices Web page.
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