Weekend Economists Go Out with a Boom August 24-26, 2012

[Demeter]

41. Death Takes a Policy:... By Jake Bernstein A MUST READ!

http://www.nationofchange.org/death-takes-policy-how-lawyer-exploited-fine-print-and-found-himself-facing-federal-charges-13459031

Death Takes a Policy: How a Lawyer Exploited the Fine Print and Found Himself Facing Federal Charges

Joseph Caramadre has spent a lifetime scouring the fine print. He's hardwired to seek the angle, an overlooked clause in a contract that allows him to transform a company's carelessness into a personal windfall. He calls these insights his "creations," and he numbers them. There have been about 19 in his lifetime, he says. For example, there was number four, which involved an office superstore coupon he parlayed into enough nearly free office furniture to fill a three-car garage. Number three consisted of a sure-fire but short-lived system for winning money at the local dog track. But the one that landed him on the evening news as a suspect in a criminal conspiracy was number 18, which promised investors a unique arrangement: You can keep your winnings and have someone else cover your losses....Caramadre portrays himself as a modern-day Robin Hood. He's an Italian kid from Providence, R.I., who grew up modestly, became a certified public accountant and then put himself through night school to get a law degree. He has given millions to charities and the Catholic Church. As he tells his life story, his native ability helps him outsmart a phalanx of high-priced lawyers, actuaries and corporate suits. Number 18 came to fruition, he says, when a sizable segment of the life insurance industry ignored centuries of experience and commonsense in a heated competition for market share.

Federal prosecutors in Rhode Island and insurance companies paint a very different picture of Caramadre: They say he's an unscrupulous con artist who engaged in identity theft, conspiracy and two different kinds of fraud. Prosecutors contend he deceived the terminally ill to make millions for himself and his clients. For them, Caramadre's can't-miss investment strategy was an illusion in which he preyed on the sick and vulnerable. ProPublica has taken a close look at the Caramadre case because it offers a window into a larger issue: The transformation of the life insurance industry away from its traditional business of insuring lives to peddling complex financial products. This shift has not been a smooth one. Particularly during the lead up to the financial crisis, companies wrote billions worth of contracts that now imperil their financial health.

In a series of detailed interviews, Caramadre said the companies designed the rules; all he did was exploit them. Their hunger for profits in a period of dizzying growth and competition, he contends, left them vulnerable to someone with his unusual acumen. The companies have argued in court that Caramadre is a fraud artist who should return every last dime he made. In his rulings to date, the federal judge hearing the civil cases has agreed with Caramadre's contention that he was doing what the fine print allowed. The secret to Caramadre's scheme can be glimpsed in a 2006 brochure for the ING GoldenSelect Variable Annuity. On the cover is a photo of a youthful older couple. The woman sits next to a computer, sporting a stylish haircut and wire-framed glasses. A man with graying hair and an open collared shirt, presumably her husband, is draped over her in a casual loving way. Images of happy vibrant seniors enjoying their golden years together — frolicking on the beach, laughing in chinos next to a gleaming classic car, enjoying the company of grandkids — populate the sales material for life insurance's hottest product — the variable annuity. As outlined in the brochure and in countless others like it, the contracts worked this way: The smiling couple gives money to ING in return for the promise of future payments. The consumer chooses how the money is invested, usually in mutual-like funds that have stocks, bonds or money market instruments. This is the "variable" part of the equation.

There are two main benefits to this arrangement not found in the ordinary mutual funds sold by brokers and financial advisers. Taxes on variable annuities are deferred until the consumer takes out cash, which means it's possible to move your money among funds without paying taxes until the money is withdrawn. (An investor who cashes in shares of a mutual fund must pay taxes on any gains.) Variable annuities also typically include a life insurance component called a guaranteed death benefit. With this guarantee, if the market crashes — but you die before your investment recovers — your beneficiary still gets a lump sum equal to either the death benefit or the value of the investments in your account, whichever is greater. The target audience for brochures like that of ING's are people nearing retirement with a nest egg to safeguard and perhaps grow a bit. It's a huge and growing market. In 2011, as the first wave of baby boomers began to retire, there were more than 40 million people age 65 or over. Between 2001 and 2010, life insurance companies sold about $1.4 trillion worth of variable annuities, according to LIMRA, an industry association.
...Today, several of the companies Caramadre targeted have stopped selling variable annuities. ING has been forced to get out of the business and write down billions in losses. Others have had to boost their reserves. Transamerica is trying to buy back some of the variable annuities it sold to policyholders. The French insurer Axa is offering its variable annuity holders money if they surrender their death benefit guarantees.