Annuity Industry curtails Benefits

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In an excellent article in Life HealthPro on July 25, 2013 entitled “Another blight on the bruised annuity industry’s reputation – When will the industry clearly explain itself to the public?” life insurance news editor Michael Stanley analogizes the annuity industry’s recent attempts to renege on the generous income and death benefits they promised to the restaurant that hawks free appetizers to bring in more customers and then fails to deliver.  Unfortunately for the Executive Life (ELNY) victims who face looming benefit reductions, there is a great deal more to be lost than some fried calamari.  Insurers lurk in the shadows, in D.C. and the state legislatures across the country, spending lavishly to protect themselves from real regulation by hiding behind McCarran Ferguson, gutting the federal insurance oversight office and fighting the “too big to fail” designations so that they don’t have to expain things like wholly owned captive insurance companies and affiliated transactions.  Michael Stanley is right when he says “Americans love repentence, we laud a good public apology”.  Instead of Executive Life of New York (ELNY) standing out as a black mark on the insurance industry, it could have been one of those shining moments where the life insurance industry came togther and did the right thing for those who matter – the policyholders.