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January 22, 2006 at 02:00 PM
Life insurers still are assessing a call for state insurance regulators to extend to all age groups provisions of an annuity sales model regulation that now protects senior citizens.
The Senior Protection in Annuity Transaction model regulation, adopted in 2003 by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo., currently covers sales of annuities to people over age 65.
During a CEO meeting on Jan. 12 that was sponsored by the American Council of Life Insurers, Jim Poolman, North Dakota insurance commissioner, said the NAIC should expand protections of the model to all ages, not just consumers over age 65.
Poolman said his office fields many annuity sales complaints. Companies have set up systems to monitor annuity sales for consumers over age 65, so it would not be difficult to expand those systems to protect all consumers, he added.
All the information available to date suggests that the primary focus must be concern for senior citizens, said Linda Lanam, ACLI vice president-annuities. However, she continued, ACLI also recognizes that both state and federal regulators feel the matter needs to be examined further.
“We want to be sensitive to the need to protect all consumers,” she added.
“ACLI has committed to taking the issue to its membership,” Lanam said. “We will have a direct response in the relatively near future.”
In a statement, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Falls Church, Va., said “NAIFA supports the special protections for seniors in the NAIC’s Senior Protection in Annuities Transactions model regulation because there was perceived to be abuses that warranted special attention. However, at this point it is not clear to NAIFA that a problem in the under-65 marketplace has been demonstrated.”
