by John Darer® CLU ChFC MSSC RSP CLTC
A Multi-State Examination into several large life insurers found that MetLife had not made sufficent effort to locate beneficiaries of life insurance policies
Insurance companies can easily find information about deceased policy owners through the Social Security Administration’s Death Master, and the investigation found that MetLife had failed to aggressively use the Master File, according to Nicholas John Jackson, an intermediary for Annapolis Missouri based Selling Your Structured Settlement, SYSS.
SYSS compares the resulting $40 million settlement to “Redwood Down” and supports this with a link to a New York Times article by Mary Williams Walsh dated April 23, 2012. [see “MetLife Settles Claims on Benefits]
Most Claims related to Industrial Life Policies
Industrial life Insurance policies (a/k/a debit life insurance) were popular prior to creation of Social Security in 1935 and were sold door to door in small face amounts. MetLife stopped selling them in 1964.
Walsh wrote that MetLife explained that because many of the people who bought the so-called industrial life policies (which it stopped selling in 1964) did so before the Social Security program was created, in 1935, no Social Security number was ever written on their policy and the master death index (a/k/a “Social Security Death Master”) was not a good place to find out whether any of them had died.
Settlement called for MetLife to make more frequent Social Security Death Master checks
MetLife said that in the last few years, MetLife had been trying to cross-check the master death index with that block of policies once a year. The settlement calls for it to make those death master cross-checks more frequently- once a month. 
MetLife’s total assets have grown almost 67% in the last 3 years See h
ere.
Nick Jackson was Simply Uninformed
When one compares $40 million to $819.6 billion it is clear that the mighty “Redwood” is standing, as it has since 1868. So current and prospective policyholders of MetLife can rest assured that there’s enough money for the largest life insurance company in the United States to keep the Snoopy 2 blimp in the air (right) AND to pay your claims.
Related Reading
Structured Settlements 4Real® blog covered the related topic of retained asset accounts extensively, in 3 blog posts during July/ August of 2010.
Prudential Cleared NJ Regulators in Life Insurance Retained Asset Investigation August 17, 2010
American Council of Life Insurers on Retained Asset Accounts Letter to the Editor New Yorek Times by Frank Keating ACLI July 29, 2010
Life Insurance Company Retained Asset Accounts for Policy Death Benefits August 7, 2010
FAQ
Industrial life insurance is a type of life insurance commonly sold to industrial workers, featuring a face value that is significantly lower than that of other types of life insurance. Premiums for industrial life insurance are typically paid on a weekly or monthly basis. Face amount is typically capped at $10,000,. In the old days the agent, who made the rounds door to door, to collect weekly premiums and was known as “the tallyman” after the act of recridng the premiums in the broker’s book.
MetLife stopped selling Industrial life insurnace policies in 1964.
Generally replaced with burial polices, small affordable permanent life insurance policies.
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