Allianz Life Faces Annuity Owner Suit
October 17, 2023 by Allison Bell
A new California state court case concerns the obligations a life insurer has to annuity holders and other customers when an advisor is convicted of wrongdoing.
Layne Kramer and the Kramer Family Irrevocable Grant Trust assert in the complaint, which was filed last week in Los Angeles, that Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America should have given Kramer more detailed information after her former advisor, David Neuman, was convicted of embezzling benefit payments from another client.
Click HERE to read the full story via ThinkAdvisor
Wink’s Moore on the Market: This agent was supposedly embezzling client funds five years ago, and then got his license revoked from the state of California.
Apparently, Allianz Life didn’t notify some more recent clients of the agent’s alleged past wrongdoing.
I don’t know that I feel that Allianz had an obligation to inform these people of why the agent no longer had a relationship with them. I would think that making allegations like that would be a liability that they would want to avoid.
However, I DO feel that the insurance company should have flagged the annuities, when they saw the agent listed as the trustee of the client’s trust. Nevermind that they should have picked-up on the address change.
I bet there will be a settlement on this one. -sjm
