Racist Insurance Racket (2) Lorenzo Komboa Ervin We talked last week about the scam by the American General Life and Accident Insurance Company of Nashville, to charge Black customers higher rates on policies that were virtually worthless to bury anyone during the 1950's and 60's. I quoted a report that said that they were forced to pay $206 million in a damage settlement to a group of Black Plaintiffs, along with 24 million in legal feees to their attorneys. Someone sent me e-mail right after the article asking me to spell out how many people were involved with the settlement. So since there might also be others interested, I will go a little further into the settlement itself. According to the terms of the settlement, as reported by the insuance watchdog group Insurance.Com: *303,372 policyholders who were charged higher premiums based solely on race were eligible for increased death benefits averaging 33.3%. Of these folks, 108,000 will receive premium refunds of at least $150, and 73,000 will receive a premium reduction that averages 25%. *873,253 policyholders are eligible for increased death benefits averaging 33.3%, with 221,000 of them receiving a premium reduction that averages 25%. *4.2 million policyholders (includes whites and non-whites) are eligible for increased death benefits, depending on how much their premium payments exceed their death benefits. My mother, Minnie Ervin, was one of those persons ripped off by this company. To them, she was just another nameless, faceless victim. But she is typical: they charged her $2-3 month for over 40 years on a $2,000 policy, and now after they have been sued they send her a check for about $200 to cover the overcharge. Remember, we are talking about the amount of money back in the 50's and 60's, as opposed to now. They would not even be making these payments at all if they were not being sued by those Black people! These top corporate people at American General remind me of the companies that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. The German companies, like Krupp Industries, got all kinds of money from slave labor, other corporate Nazis enriched themselves from the theft of Jewish artifacts and from other crimes, even the Swiss bankers now admit that they robbed Jewish customers during that period by pilfering their accounts, and split it with the Nazi Germans. American General is a major company today because of its theft of these funds by swallowing companies fleecing semi-literate and elderly Black people in the South. They knew about all this when they took over those old segregationist insurance companies, and kept doing it until they were ordered to stop by the Department of Insurance of Florida and other states. If you or I did these things, we would all be in jail for fraud, but it seems the heads of corporate boards are exempt from prosecution if they can pay their way out of trouble. The assets of this company should be seized and turned over to the families of the people who were robbed. I am just one person who has found out that the American General insurance policies they sold were worthless, or that they will not honor them now. I am having a hell of a time just getting them to pay the $500 policy on my mother's death, they have been fillibustering on paying ever since I called and told them back in March. If I didn't have the money to pay the funeral home, then my family may not have been able to inter my mother. Now that American General has been sued for millions, and the Attorneys Generals of states all over the country are cracking down on race-based policies, even the insurance company is talking "reform", although they admit no wrongdoing. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), which is a national group of the state regulatory agencies, has vowed to crack down on life insurers who are allegedly charging higher premiums on "small face-value" life insurance policies based on their race. At its summer national meeting in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2000, the NAIC adopted a resolution to seek restitution for policyholders who were charged higher life insurance premiums based on their race, and to conduct an investigation into the entire small-face-value insurnace industry. "The use of race as an insurance underwriting critieria is inexcusable," says George Nichols III, Kentucky's insurance commissioner and president of the NAIC. "We, in our separate jurisdictions, are checking with companies to see if it is still being used. If it is, the practice must stop immediately." June 2001 is the month that NAIC regulators expect to complete the analysis of whether companies still continue to engage in racist policy underwriting. Of course, American General would have to be re-investigated if this NAIC probe is to have any teeth, since they now are apprently throwing up new illegal bureaucratic hurdles to prevent heirs from collecting on the burial policies themselves. This new procedure should be considered bad-faith insurance fraud in its own right, although it is not known yet how many persons this has happened to. Again, American General continues to stonewall. From cradle to grave the corporate capitalists rob you. Back to Anarchism And The Black Revolution