State regulators weigh cracking down on insurers

All Louise Mankiewicz wanted was a guaranteed death benefit... Her husband, Leonard, had retired and taken his full pension without the surviving spouse option. So they wanted to ensure she would have protected income and benefits, as “a buffer for me if anything happened, since his pension would stop.”

That’s what she kept telling the insurance agent from Prudential Financial 20 years ago, when he first sold her what turned out to be a $100,000 variable life insurance policy.

She said the same thing to her grandson’s girlfriend at MetLife in 2000, when she and a partner sold her a replacement rollover policy, for $165 a month. And both times, the agents assured her she would have a protected benefit. “They made it seem like nothing was different,” she said. “You’re just going to be paying MetLife instead of Prudential...”

Buffalo News: State regulators weigh cracking down on insurers