MetLife Settles with NY over Lost Retirees

On January 28, 2019, Superintendent of Financial Services for the State of New York, Maria Vullo, announced that the Department of Financial Services (DFS) had settled its dispute with MetLife over the insurers failure to make payments to thousands of retirees owed benefits under pension risk transfer annuity contracts that dated back to 1992.  Under the terms of the consent order, MetLife will pay a penalty of $19.75 Million and restitution in the form of retroactive benefits totaling more than $189 Million.  MetLife was cited for violations from 1992 – 2017 including: (1) improperly released reserves for 13,712 group annuity certificates; (2) failure to adequately search for group annuity certificate  holders;  (3) failure to perform a cross-check against the Social Security master death index; (4) failure to take reasonable efforts to confirm the death of an insured; (5) failure to research and timely commence outreach where variations of an insured’s information existed; (6) failure to ensure that disclosure statements were accurate and complaint with law; and (7) failure to present consumers with an accurate comparison of the fees between existing and proposed variable annuity contracts.  MetLife has been directed to take corrective measures and to retain a third-party servicer specializing in locating beneficiaries who are due pension benefits and have not been paid.  Edward Stone Law reported earlier on MetLife’s settlement with Massachusetts,