October 25, 2019 • 47 mins
Educate Yourself: Whether you are an advisor or a consumer, take advantage of available resources - Neil Granger
In this episode of GET READY!, I spoke with Neil Granger who specializes in the identification and prevention of elder financial abuse. Neil and I discussed best practices for insurance agents, common fraud techniques and elder financial abuse legislation. Neil shared his experiences in working with attorneys, regulators and law enforcement on elder financial abuse prevention and enforcement.
CONNECT WITH Neil Granger:
LinkedIn - Neil Granger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-granger
Website - elderinsuranceabuse.com
Resources:
California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform: canhr.org (much more than nursing homes)
California Department of Insurance: insurance.ca.gov
Financial Regulatory Links: tonysteuer.com
The Get Ready Money Podcast and its guests do not provide investment advice. All content is for educational purposes. Guest opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Get Ready Money Podcast and Tony Steuer.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the get ready with Tony Stewart podcast.
This episode, I am pleased towelcome my old colleague Neil
chair, Neil, welcome to the getready with Tony Stewart podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thanks Tony.
I'm an old colleague.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Well, you know, old is all relative and old and the
terms of we've known each otherfor
Speaker 2 (00:34):
A long time for a long time.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
So, uh, let's dive into it, uh, before we do, of
course, uh, I'll want to let youknow a little bit about who Neil
is.
Uh, since 2008, Neil has focusedhis practice on consulting and
expert work in the area of elderfinancial abuse prevention.
Neil works with several districtattorney offices as a member of
(01:00):
their financial abuse specialistteams.
He's testified in both criminaland civil cases and works with
the investigative unit of theCalifornia department of
insurance.
Neil also works with theWashington state attorney
general.
Neil's helped draft and hastestified in favor of insurance
legislation, which has helpedstrengthen financial protection
(01:22):
for California.
Seniors.
Neil currently also serves asthe chairman of the California
department of insurancecurriculum board.
And on top of that in case thisisn't enough, Neil is also a
member of the city and County ofSan Francisco's forensic center,
which is a group comprised ofadult protective service workers
(01:42):
representatives from this SanFrancisco County ombudsman city
attorney, district, attorney,police, conservator medical
staff, and others.
As part of this, Neil's also,uh, active with the veterans aid
awareness project, which thisgroup works to publicize and
(02:02):
curtail the financial abuse ofveterans through the improper
use of veterans aid andattendance program by commercial
financial predators is you cansee basically Neil does a lot of
work with regulatory and, uh,enforcement agencies, and he's
even helped write the laws interms of, um, financial abuse
(02:26):
protection.
Neo, am I leaving anything outthere?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I don't think so.
I like long walks on the beach,but other than that, no, I think
you've got everything.
I mean, my, my area practice, II've been in, in, in the
insurance industry since 1984.
My area of practice now is, uh,particularly in the area of
elder financial abuse and, um,more specifically in the, um,
(02:51):
commercial enterprises that aredirected toward the elder abuse
of seniors.
Um, so yeah, you got mucheverything, I think.
All right, well, fantastic.
You and I met on the curriculumboard, so
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, Neil and I served together, I think for
about eight years on, uh, thecurriculum board.
Uh, the curriculum board is aboard that's part of the
California department ofinsurance that oversees, uh,
education and licensingrequirements, uh, for agents in,
uh, the state of California.
So that's where we both comefrom.
(03:28):
And that's where we both, uh,have a common interest is in
promoting best practices in theinsurance industry.
Right.
Uh, which the listeners know canbe a struggle sometimes in the
insurance industry.
And that's why, you know, Neil'sgot a lot to say that will
really give you some things tothink about.
(03:51):
And some good lessons learned aswell as some tips on how to stay
on the right side of things.
Uh, especially when you approacha gray area.
So, you know, Neil, you've donea few things over the course of
your career, and I know youstill continue to do quite a
bit.
You play music, you're part of aband you've done construction,
(04:13):
you know, and then somehow youended up doing insurance
litigation and elder financialprotection.
I mean, what was the path to getyou here and how do you tie all
this together?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Uh, kind of unlike you, my brother is also a guy
like Tony, where, uh, you know,he's, uh, he has a background in
finance, um, came out of collegewith a finance degree.
Uh, I actually came out ofcollege with a music degree.
And so I was a professionalmusician for several years.
I'll always have had an interestin, uh, in kind of, for lack of
(04:47):
a better term kind of blue, bluecollar stuff.
Uh, so I actually began, uh,working also as most musicians
do they pick up a day job out,uh, fixing cars.
So I managed a couple of shopsand, um, uh, back in, uh, 1984,
uh, a guy came in to have hiscar serviced and he had an
(05:08):
insurance general agency.
And so he said, Hey, look, youseem like you're reasonably
presentable.
Uh, maybe you'd like to, youknow, sell insurance.
And if you do let me know.
And so that's how I got in.
I became licensed in 1984 as alife, uh, life.
I think it was life and hell, Ican't remember, but anyway, the
life and health producer and,um, it was kind of an exciting
(05:30):
time in, in the insurance.
And I think you've been in it aslong as I have, I think Tony,
and that was a prettyinteresting time because that
was these guys that I worked forhad this novel idea about this
product called term insurance.
So typically what was availableback then was traditional whole
life policies.
And as you know, um, the wholelife policies were pretty
(05:53):
expensive from a premiumstandpoint.
So, uh, or purchasing them,weren't able to get the volume
of insurance.
They needed to protect theirfamilies because the premiums
were so high, they were based onoutdated actuarial assumptions
and things like that.
So the agency I went to work forfor curiously was, uh, was
(06:15):
focused on the idea of, um, youknow, what we really need to do
is get clients enoughprotection.
So you know, that if a,particularly if a breadwinner
were die, that the family wouldbe able to, to continue to, even
though it would not be the samelifestyle, at least financially,
it would be a salvageablesituation where, or the
(06:35):
financial aspect of it.
Uh, it didn't have to worryabout.
So, so we began selling a lot ofdifferent kinds of term
insurance and a whole bunch ofcompanies probably don't exist
anymore.
Um, but people could buyaffordably young families was
what I worked with.
The other thing that the agencyI did, they had, uh, they had
originated this mortgage, uh,insurance program where, you
(06:57):
know, people would get a card inthe mail saying, you know, you
just took out a mortgage, youknow, this whole thing, this is
very common practice now, but itwasn't then.
So term insurance was arelatively new thing.
Mortgage leads, if you will,that's our, we've got our leads
were new.
And so I had the opportunity togo in and out of a lot of
houses, all the meetings backthen were done.
(07:18):
Face-to-face in fact, a lot ofthe insurance companies
prohibited, uh, selling over thephone.
Well, the internet course didn'texist.
So I would take my horse andbuggy up to somebody's house and
, and sit down with them and,and work with them.
So, so that was kind of how Igot started.
And then shortly after I gotstarted, some of the better, the
(07:38):
new at that time interestsensitive cash value products
came in a sensitive whole lifeproducts, the, uh, universal
life first universal lifepolicies, uh, also, uh, began to
show up, uh, in addition to thatlong-term care was something
that, um, that was a beginningback in, I guess it was the late
(08:00):
eighties.
We also had some pretty gooddisability policy.
So my career started sellingterm life insurance.
And, you know, I workedprimarily because of my
background, I guess, and becauseI was really comfortable with,
uh, kind of blue collar folks, Iworked kind of blue collar
areas.
We all had areas we worked.
And so, uh, I enjoyed it.
I enjoy meeting people, gettingto know their families and, and
(08:22):
helping them figure out anaffordable way to, uh, to get
coverage.
They wanted.
It was an exciting time.
It may be hard if somebody'sgetting into the business.
Yeah.
Um, right around that.
But, um, so that's how I gotstarted.
And then I became a partnershipcertified with lawn care, and we
watched that whole long-termcare insurance debacle unfold
(08:43):
probably together from differentcounties at that time.
Um, watch the first-generationof products come in and then the
products that were price-drivencome in.
Uh, so that was kinda how I gotstarted.
Um, and that, that was prettymuch, I worked for the agency
for a number of years.
And then I went out on my own.
(09:03):
I became a general agent with,uh, with Ohio national life and,
uh, began to sell my ownproducts, not just with them,
but with other people too.
So, uh, kind of took the 10 stepback from selling in, in, in, in
the early two thousands.
Uh, I had a thriving wine cellarbusiness then.
So I was doing that.
(09:24):
I got back into, um, I got backinto the expert side of things
about, that's kind of the,that's kind of the thumbnail, I
think more than you wanted, but,
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Well, I think it's good because you know, it, it,
you've had a lot of experienceand you've seen the life and
health industry changedramatically.
And I think for those who are onthe property casualty side,
there's a big difference,especially with life insurance,
with property and casualtyinsurance insurance is about
(09:57):
insurance.
It's about protecting the riskand paying for the pure
protection of the risk.
You know, of course there'sother components involved with
that, but there there's nothingthat anybody gets back after a
certain period of time, perhapsthey might get a small dividend
on their workers' compensationinsurance or something of that
(10:17):
nature, or, you know, it'sminimal.
However, in insurance, the lifeinsurance, traditionally people
had cash value, life insurancepolicies, which they got to
return their cash value.
Now, as we all know, there'snothing free in life right now.
Right,
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Right.
Right.
And actually I think, uh, my jobat that point, um, was to
educate people about insuranceand because I would, we would, I
would run into people every day,every week I saw probably eight
to 10 people a week who had cashvalue, life insurance.
And of course, part of my rolewas to say, you know, what, what
(10:58):
insurance is about is it's aboutprotection.
It's, that's common with a proin common with property
casualty, but most of thesefolks have been sold.
These insurance policies toldthem it was a great way to save
money.
And so a lot of what we had todo early in the, um, in the, in,
in my career was to educatepeople about, look, this is a
(11:20):
final paycheck for you.
So what we have to do is ratherthan working from the premium
backwards, in other words,figuring out how much you can
spend and then, uh, and then, uh, providing you with an
expensive whole life policy whenyou've got two young kids at
home or something like that,let's talk about how much
insurance you really need if youwere to buy, uh, why do agents
(11:40):
sell your whole life insurance?
Cause they'd rather talk aboutsaving money than about you
being dead, but you got to talkabout you.
And so that was a lot of where Iwent with.
It was, you know, this is aboutlife insurance.
There are lots of ways to savemoney.
Uh, you know, if you want tosave money, pay off your credit
card.
Right.
But anyway, uh, so, so a lot ofit was just explaining to people
(12:02):
that, um, the amount ofinsurance that they actually
needed was far higher thanthey'd been told that they
needed.
And also to help them understandthat there are ways to
affordably, especially for ayoung family where their
expenses are high, their need isthe brain is you've got young
kids, you've got a need forinsurance.
If something happens to you, yougot to provide for them.
How do you do that?
(12:22):
Well, you do it affordably.
And so a lot of our job backthen was to educate people about
what term insurance was.
And actually Tony, it'sinteresting.
You'd go to the property andcasualty because that's what I
talked about.
I mindset, well, look, you know,if you have, if you drive your
car around for a year and youdon't have a wreck, the
insurance company doesn't go,wow, that's great.
Here's$5,000.
They, they take the money that'sout terminal.
(12:45):
And so that was a lot of what wewere doing back then was getting
people to understand, uh, theyhad a higher need than they
thought, and they didn't have topay as much as they thought they
had.
Um, it was go ahead.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I was going to say, and I think that underlines one
of the best practices, uh, youknow, uh, that I implemented, I
know you, you helped me puttogether the financial
principles and that financialprinciple is to get the coverage
that you need rather than haveit be based upon anything else.
(13:20):
And I think, you know, that'seven in homeowner's insurances,
you know, taking a look at thereplacement property, uh, the
replacement value of theproperty currently, and making
sure that those parameters areup to speed where in life
insurance, traditionally, thatwas not the question.
Uh, the question wasn't reallyabout assessing the property
(13:41):
risk.
It was about how much insurancecould somebody buy or how much
premium,
Speaker 2 (13:46):
How much could you afford.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Now let's get right to the heart of the matter,
because what you've beeninvolved with and where you and
I have found a lot of commoninterests is in ancient misdeeds
and company misdeeds.
And I think that those prettymuch, I would say, I don't think
I've seen any that have stemmedfrom term insurance if you Emil.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
No, no.
Uh, term insurance is a, uh,maybe it's a, self-selection
kind of a thing where if you'reselling term insurance, you're
already as an agent, you'realready committed to helping
people find the right amount ofcoverage.
They have, most of the time I'veseen problems, it's with the
cash value insurance and that'sbecause cash value insurance
(14:31):
premiums are higher.
Typically commission rates arehigher.
Uh, and I think a lot of timesthe agencies seldom are, are
not, maybe not particularly aswell, educated as they might be
about them and how they work
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Well.
And I think that's, there'sactually two lessons in there.
One is, and I think this is atheme we'll continue to head on
through this episode is thatit's all about the customer.
It's not about the advisor.
It's not about the broker.
It's not about the insurancecompany.
It's about serving the customerand getting them a good product.
(15:09):
And no matter what line ofinsurance coverage or outside of
insurance, you know, whatfinancial product you're
representing, it's about findingthe thing that fits the client's
needs and getting them the bestproduct.
And then the second part thatyou hit on is the educational
component.
Because I think that if youeducate the clients and the
(15:31):
clients truly understand whatthey need is you're not going to
have too many problems with yourbook of business.
I mean, would you agree withthat meal?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
And what I used to tell myclients and my colleagues did
too, was if, if you don'tunderstand what I'm talking
about here, or if you don'tunderstand what I want you to
purchase, then don't buy itbecause my job is, um, my job is
to overcome kind of the naturalconflict of interest that maybe
insurance commission tradesbased people have with their
(16:02):
clients and make sure that youunderstand what you need.
Number one, and give you optionsas to ways that you can make
that happen.
And so, um, I think that theeducational component of it is
extremely important and it's thefirst thing that, um, that, uh,
I would do.
And it was the first thing thatthis agency I worked with
(16:24):
required us to do, you know, youhave to go in and make sure
people understand, uh, whatyou're, what they're buying and
then if they understand it andif there's full disclosure and
if they're given options, thenyou know, your, your potential
for problems drops asterisk bydoing.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah.
So if there's anybody here witha errors and emissions company,
this is the lesson to promote,to, uh, be agents who are
insured with you.
And on the flip side for agentsand companies, if you don't want
to spend quality time with yourerrors and emissions company,
uh, yeah, I think these likethat.
(17:04):
So, you know, let's, you know,I, I know you've got so many
cases that you work on that arejust fascinating.
Um, do you want to share maybewhat you consider your most
interesting, fascinating case?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Well, there, there are a couple, I mean, um, I
can't really give you a namename, but My first of course, my
first case I did as an expertwitness was, was very
interesting because it was a, amajor class action lawsuit
against an insurance company whowas using their, um, their
(17:38):
general agencies and their,their, their field offices to
promote, um, trusts and trustmills.
And so they were, um, they wereworking along with the, uh,
their, uh, FMS and their, andtheir general agencies to give
them materials in order to havethe, uh, the agents put on
(18:01):
senior seminars and talk abouthow people need to trust and
then using the trusts as apretext for selling annuities
and a pretty bad annuity.
So I think for me, that was aninteresting case in the sense
that it was the first time I'dreally seen that, that this was
an enterprise, you know, that,that an insurance company was
(18:22):
looking at this.
You had a lot of insurancecompany, um, people who were
myopically sort of fixed uponthe marketing of these products,
and I'm not entirely sure thatthey really saw what was wrong
with it.
They just saw, this was a waythat we could get our products
out in the field.
That's pretty common.
First case was reallyinteresting that way, uh, for a
(18:44):
couple of reasons.
And I think maybe for some ofour listeners, it might be
interesting because it was thefirst case where I saw that what
the insurance company did was tosay, we're just giving you this
information, the agents,whatever the agents do with it
has nothing to do with us.
So, so I said, wow, this isinteresting.
Um, the insurance companies arethrowing the agents under the
(19:06):
bus, you know, so that was from,and being an agent myself.
That was a really interesting,um, interesting thing to me.
And it's also one of the earlycases I did was with a large
insurance company back East, andthey were doing the same thing.
They were marketing, I believethey were four 57 plans to their
clients who were CPAs.
(19:27):
And so these CPAs would go outand sell these plans to people
who were in their late eightiesor mid eighties, early eighties.
And there was no way to fund theplan properly.
There was no way that they coulddisperse the money out of the
plan properly was it was clearlyfinancial elder abuse, but the
people who were pushing it atthe home office, this concept,
(19:47):
the marketing people who werelooking at a way to increase
business, right.
Um, and at the same time therewas, there was no everything was
so compartmentalize.
Um, you can draw your ownconclusions about why that's
done.
Uh, everything was socompartmentalized to the company
that nobody had to take ultimateresponsibility for this whole
(20:11):
enterprise.
So the company saying, well, youknow, we have these marketing
people, they do that.
Uh, all our products are, are,uh, you know, compliant with the
department of insurance.
Uh, you know, and, and, uh, ofcourse that was before we had a
lot of the, a lot of themandatory disclosure document.
And so to me, that wasfascinating because it was the
(20:33):
first time I saw where a companycould structure their whole
oversight operations so thatnobody actually had to take
responsibility for the bank.
I think, again, it was an underit underscored for me.
Uh, if you're an agent that thecompany's first line of defense
and I've in the litigation workthat I've done.
(20:55):
And even in the, in the criminalwork and things like that, the
first companies I have a goodcriminal case first company is
lineup.
The company's first line ofdefense is to say, well, the
agents aren't our employees andthey did this on their own.
And we certainly wouldn't, uh,wouldn't, uh, uh, condone this.
Uh, a lot of times when you, indiscovery, you go through the
(21:17):
documents you find out, actuallythey did know one fun criminal
case, and I can actually giveyou the guy's name, a guy named
Jeffrey Milton in San Diego.
It was my first criminal case.
I, I testified at hispreliminary hearing.
He ran a trust mill.
And if you don't know what atrust mill is, you, you might
want to look that up.
Basically, a trust mill as anenterprise where a trust, the
(21:40):
creation of a trust is used as apretext to obtain someone's
financial information.
That information then is, uh,uh, those assets are then
converted into annuity.
So the scam has to have a seniorseminar recommend that somebody
get a trust having now having anattorney with you or not in this
case, I'm not sure if there wasa real attorney involved, this
(22:01):
guy would set up these press andthen get a list of all the
seniors assets.
And then he would sell them anannuity.
Unfortunately, the annuity thathe sold them was, uh, typed up
at his own house.
So he set up a nonprofit, heactually set up a nonprofit.
Wow.
And, and he would, and so onthis, it was actually, I think
(22:23):
it, I believe it was sort of a,like an audience asterick exit
annuity.
He just took all the aunts, hisname off it, put it on hand, but
on his and, uh, would, wouldpocket the money.
So he just pocket the money.
He didn't, he wasn't selling it.
Wasn't there was no insurancecompany involved.
That was an interesting one.
He went, ended up going toprison, I think, because he'd
done it multiple times.
(22:44):
So a couple of there.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah.
Well, I think, you know, we'reseeing a couple of key takeaways
is responsibility.
Uh, the farming out ofresponsibility, especially as,
uh, the insurance industry andthe financial services industry
has these very, uh, spread outdistribution networks.
I mean, we saw it recently, evenwith Wells Fargo where it wasn't
(23:09):
a distributed network where itwas Wells Fargo internally, uh,
promoting fraudulent sales thatI think, you know, everybody
along the process has to beresponsible for themselves and
understand their role.
But I think that we all need totake a bigger, uh, look at the
bigger picture.
(23:30):
I mean, when you agree mealsthat, you know, you have to take
a look at the forest that we'reall operating in rather than the
trees.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah.
I think, I think you do, youhave to have a much broader
range of, uh, of focus than youused to have.
And, and, you know, you're anagent, uh, or you're a general
agent, um, uh, you, you reallyhave to be aware of best
practices and you have to reallybe, um, aware of what the
(23:58):
requirements are for you.
Um, and you have to go above andbeyond those, I believe to make
sure that you're making fulldisclosure, that you're, you're
behaving in an ethical way.
Um, a lot of what I used to hearin these meetings I'd go to as
well, you know, we've got a, youknow, we don't have to worry
about it if it gets pretty ugly.
(24:18):
I mean, I've sat in ondepositions of agents and it's
not fun.
So anything you can do to avoid,uh, being in that situation is
really important.
And, um, so as an agent, if youmake sure you dot all the I's
and cross the T's and you doyour best practice, and also you
understand the broader range ofwhat what's going on out in the
(24:40):
market, that's very important.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
That's great.
Yeah.
I think that's great tips.
I know I've done a couple ofdepositions and it's something
I, I got to say actually gettinga root canal was much more
peaceful because at least Icould turn on my iPhone and
listen to some music,
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Nitrous oxide.
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So, you know, when you can compare a root canal
favorably to something, I thinkthat kind of gives you an idea.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And it's really not about the deposition.
And I do believe, I mean, it is,and it isn't, but, you know, um,
as an agent, if you're sellinginsurance, uh, the way you get
to a deposition is by not beingaware of the perhaps unintended
consequences of your actions.
And, um, that's why, you know,here in California, we're lucky
(25:31):
we have a lot of elderprotections in place via the
insurance code.
Um, but as a producer, you stillhave to go above and beyond
that, make sure you documenteverything, uh, make sure that
you, uh, that you keep notes oneverything.
Uh, if you're dealing with anolder senior, um, get their
family involved, uh, make surethat full disclosure is given,
(25:54):
make sure you understand theproducts that you sell.
I mean, a lot of the agents, alot of the agents that I've seen
in a lot of the cases I've beeninvolved with, it's absolutely
clear, uh, that the, uh, thatthe agent doesn't know the
product they're just told tosell it because of the
commission.
Uh, one of the first cases Idid, in fact, the first case I
did, uh, expert testimony on wasa case where the agent sold an
(26:19):
84 year old illiterate,cognitively impaired guy, uh,
$660,000 worth of annuities,really bad annuities.
I think mission on them was 16%,something like that.
So you do the math indeposition, the agent didn't
know what an annuitant was.
So educate yourself, make sureyou know what you're doing.
(26:42):
Yeah.
And educate your clients
Speaker 1 (26:44):
As well.
And I think that's, you know,it's a lesson that we can all
take is, you know, that all ofour clients age and as they age,
um, you know, we have to beaware, uh, of cognitive changes,
right.
With our clients and, uh,familiarize with ourselves.
I'm going to ask you about thatin just a sec, but I, there,
(27:06):
there was one other point, but Ithink it may be slowly slipping
away.
So I'll give back to you in aminute, send me okay.
I'm 67.
I know that as we go here is,um, you know, what can agents
do?
And, uh, insurance companies,do, you know, this is going to
be a bigger issue with thebringing of America in
(27:27):
monitoring our clients.
And as a company, you know, abook of business as Americans
age, and we run into some ofthese issues where the clients
may be losing some of theircognitive function.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah.
I think that's, that's a realissue.
And, uh, I previously mentioned,I think one thing that you can
do as an agent, it's, it's kindof, kind of a hassle, you know,
um, but trying to get the familyinvolved, like they're
typically, like, I know, youknow, we just lost my father, my
mother, and father-in-law thisyear and my dad passed away a
while ago.
(28:02):
But as a, as their kids, mybrother and I were, were
intimately involved in, um,making, helping them make
financial decisions as theybecame older.
So, so, um, my sense is that if,if you're, if you're an agent,
you kind of know what you shoulddo.
And, um, that would be, um, toput the interests of the client
(28:25):
ahead of, uh, the interest inmaking a sale.
Um, and to make sure that youclient has the resources
together.
And I don't mean financialresources necessarily.
I mean, the family resources,the support, um, together, uh,
to, uh, to be able toresponsibly make decisions.
You know, a lot of times Iwould, if they had an estate
(28:47):
planning attorney, I would meetwith the attorney and talk about
what, what might be best.
Uh, I'd also recommend to peoplethat they, uh, that they get
fee-based planners and that theyuse a fee-based planner to help
them tell them what they need todo, and then they can shop for
it with agents from the agent'sperspective.
I think it's full disclosure,it's, uh, giving people choices,
(29:09):
um, universally in, uh, and I, Idon't, I can't say this about
much, but, uh, universally inthe cases I've looked at.
And again, I look at a lot ofcases every month because I work
with the city and County of SanFrancisco.
I also work with some districtattorneys.
And so then the attorney generalthings like that, department of
insurance, universally, uh, I'vesaid that three times now people
(29:35):
are only shown one product.
They're only shown one productand they're told this is it.
Um, that to me is a big redflag.
So if you're a producer andyou're out there talking to
people and you're working withseniors, I would say that what
you can do is first of all, makesure that they have the people
with them who can help them makethe decision in an informed way.
(29:57):
That's the point of the 24 hournotice law in San Francisco in,
in California is that, uh, theagent has to give written notice
to the Sr 24 hours before theymeet with them so that the
senior has the option of havingpeople there or not being there
at all themselves.
Um, so that's, that's the onething and I lost the thread on
the other, but then it wouldalso be to, uh, to make sure
(30:21):
that you show, uh, a number ofproducts and also to make, you
know, to give people time, tomake their decisions.
And a lot of that isantithetical to the sales
process as we, you know, you'resupposed to go in and uploads
them, that kind of, but again,work with their resources.
Um, another thing that we'veseen in elder abuse cases, uh,
one of the red flags is when yousee a senior, who's been asked
(30:44):
to change their CPA and theirattorney and their insurance
agent all at one time, becausethat's starting to look like
some kind of an enterprise to methey're isolating the senior,
uh, isolating the senior fromtheir support system in order to
manipulate them into, intopurchasing the inappropriate
products or services.
So those are the kinds of thingsyou can do, kind of ease into
(31:07):
using the support network thatthe senior has to help them make
decisions, to make sure that thefamily knows what's going on.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Okay.
So, you know, and that, thatleads to the next question is,
so let's say you're part of thedistribution chain, but once or
twice removed either you're aninsurance wholesaler, general
agent, you know, what have you,or you're an insurance company.
How do you, when you're removedfrom the client, uh, monitor
(31:38):
this process of what tools canbe implemented to put in some
best practices,
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Why look at the agent report, that's where I started.
You know, if you're a carrier,develop an agent report that's
comprehensive.
Um, and if you're, if you're acarrier or you're a general
agent, um, here's what I foundin litigation is that, that, you
know, the agent report does notbecome part of the contract.
The application does.
(32:07):
And often what happens is, isthat the agent report is what
the agent uses to sell the caseto the insurance company.
You know, how much money theyhave, where is it?
Do they have this experience,that experience that kind of, a
lot of times the agent reportdoes not agree with the required
disclosure documents in theapplication.
And so that's one place I wouldstart make sure that the agent
(32:30):
report is, has parallelinformation to the information
on the annuity disclosure formsthat are, that are, uh, that are
, uh, given with theapplication, make sure that the
client has an illustration.
Um, a lot of the abuses I'veseen are, uh, uh, I showed it to
(32:52):
them on the computer.
Yeah.
And there's some insurancecompanies that accept that like,
Oh, I showed them a computerillustration.
Um, make sure they have signed,signed, uh, make sure they show
the whole illustration.
You, and I've seen this, youknow, it's like nine pages long
and they get one page with whiteout all over it or something.
So, um, I think if you'reupstream in the distribution
(33:15):
network, um, make sure that, uh,make sure that any kind of look
at, look at datings on trust.
See if it's, uh, generated,backtrack that, uh, look at the
pattern.
If you're a company, look at thepattern of the agent's behavior.
Often you find, uh, the badplayers have consistent behavior
(33:38):
across their entire clientele.
And, um, take a few minutes andlook at that, uh, look at where
the checks are coming from.
See if you're getting two partychecks, see if, see, if agents
are doing 10 35 exchange onpolicies.
When, when appropriate, a lot ofagents will have, um, we'll have
their clients, um, surrendertheir existing annuities and
(34:02):
then take the money and give itto the new company so that they
can avoid having the companyhaving to answer that question,
which says, are you replacingany annuities with this new one?
And they say, no.
And then they have the client,uh, am I giving a how to manual
here?
I hope not the client surrendertheir existing annuities and
then take money and put it intothe new one.
(34:25):
Of course, two or three yearslater, it turns out, Oh, they
got constructive receipt of avalue.
And now the IRS is after them.
And, and, and actually a numberof agents have been caught that
way, that the client gets an IRSnotice saying, you owe X,
thousands of dollars in taxes.
And they're like, well, but I, Iexchanged my annuity.
No, you didn't use surrenderedit.
And then you wrote a new checkor the, my favorite you
(34:48):
surrendered it.
And then you endorse the back ofthe check to the new company and
the new company took it.
They took us, they took us, theytook a second party check.
So, uh, anyway, that's, that'smy little rant on that.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Well, you know, I, I think, uh, you know, some of
that of courses, uh, veryspecific to annuities and some,
a little bit to life insurance,but I think the bigger lessons
for the entire financialservices industry is the Finner
role of know your customer.
Right.
You know, that's what you're, ifI understand correctly, that's
(35:19):
what you're saying about theagent support.
And I think that's something,you know, I don't know to what
extent property and casualtycompanies, uh, use as farms.
But I think with the graying ofAmerica, it's something that all
firms should be using.
I think they should beimplementing, you know, with
some of those, they almostborder on money laundering rules
(35:41):
is endorsing of checks andtaking a look at those co party
checks and where the checks arecoming from, uh, you know, their
property and casualty people canalso be part of that process and
the property and casualtyinsurance companies, property
and casualty insurance agentswho are often using escrow
accounts, uh, that the insurancecompanies, you know, I don't
(36:03):
know to some degree.
So if we have listeners outthere, uh, my, my area of
knowledge is minimal here, but,uh, you know, is the monitoring
and practices that you set uparound the escrow accounts?
Uh,
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yeah.
I know nothing about that, butthat's, that's interesting.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah.
So, you know, there's areas thatwe can all take, uh, you know,
uh, from all facets of theinsurance industry.
And if you're a consumer who'slistening to this, that the
lesson is, you know, to payattention, to, to know what's
going on, to become educated, totake a look at, you know, like
(36:42):
you said, if a guy's printing upannuities, uh, you know, on his
typewriter, you know, if you'rebuying it from Bob's mutual
insurance company, that might bea tip off, um, is that you want
to make sure you're doingbusiness with a legitimate agent
and a insurance company, andwe're fortunate enough to have,
(37:05):
uh, the internet where you caneasily do research.
Uh, sometimes it is hard to tellif a company is real or not.
I mean, Bernie Madoff got awaywith his shenanigans for decades
and fooled.
Some people who possibly shouldhave known better.
Um, however, you know, lot ofthe stuff it's just like getting
(37:26):
the phishing emails, you canpretty much tell when there's a
misspelling and instead of, uh,you know, state farm, it says
state farmers, you know, butmaybe there's something wrong
there that state farm probablyknows how to spell their name by
now.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
They probably do.
Yeah, they've done it.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
So I think the things that we can all learn, um, so
Neil, uh, you know, w we're notgoing to have time to really get
into legislation, unfortunately.
So definitely we'll want to haveyou on for that, but I'm sure,
you know, a couple, couplequestions, you know, I want to
leave on is, you know, how canpeople stay on top of, um, these
(38:12):
developments and stay ahead ofthe curve?
Speaker 2 (38:15):
It's hard to do, um, you know, consumers, I think you
can, um, department of insurancehas some stuff on their website,
but there are some, um, thereare some, uh, entities out
there, a couple of nonprofitsthat I think have good
information on this.
Uh, I mean, Tony, I think onething you can do is get your
book, because I think that, Ithink that, and I was not paid
(38:38):
to say that because I think thatthe big problem is that, uh, as
a consumer, uh, the big issue isthat, you know, you have to take
some responsibility on yourselfand it has to be, you know, you
have to put a little bit ofeffort in of good effort in to
understand your own situation.
(38:59):
And if you get a book like theget ready book, um, and I've
actually given that to mydaughter, my wife has she's
filling it out.
Uh it's um, it's the kind ofthing where it gets your
information in one place whereyou can look at it.
So I think that you can startwith a resource, like, well, any
of your books, really, but toget ready to book, it's really
good for a way of havingeverything in one place.
(39:21):
Then I think, you know, educateyourself.
Um, you could go on a websitelike the California advocates
for, uh, California advocatesfor, I just forgot their name,
canner, California advocates,quantum care, anyway, uh,
canter.org.
They have a lot of resources on,um, Medi-Cal veteran's aid and
(39:42):
attendance, wills, trusts agingin place.
How the, how the nursing homesystems work and all that, uh,
they also have an 800 number.
So we actually have a hotlineyou can call in, if you have any
questions or you think there'ssomething fishy going on, you
can call California advocatesfor nursing home.
That's it.
I got it.
Call them up and they can talkto you about it.
(40:04):
There's also the Californiaelder justice coalition.
They have a lot of goodresources on their website, CDI,
uh, California department ofinsurance has stuff too, but the
way I think too, that's part ofwhat you can do.
And if you're a producer, uh,some of these nonprofits like
Cantor has a conference everyyear, I go to the conference and
(40:26):
spend a couple of days talkingto people who are in this field.
Um, it's harder to findinformation on financial abuse
of seniors than it is physicalabuse, but what's becoming
rapidly recognized is that it's,it's a real, it's a real
problem.
So staying in front of thosetrends, I think that that would
(40:46):
be how I would do it.
Uh, anything you can do as aproducer to, um, to further
educate yourself around thiswill make you more valuable to
you for your clients.
And certainly as a guy who'saging, I want to have people
around who, uh, who noticestuff.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Yeah, well, and I think that's so important is
that, you know, across, uh, thewhole distribution line, ending
with a consumer as a part of thedistribution line of a financial
service product and theecosystem is that we should all
be paying attention to theseresources that are being put out
there by various non-profits andregulatory bodies take it upon
(41:30):
ourselves to stay current, uh,with the issues are, um, are
there any, uh, thought leadersin this area or newsletters or
websites that put out regularinformation, you might suggest
to people,
Speaker 2 (41:43):
You know, I'm, I'm kind of in this weird little
call to SAC and I'm part of alist serve for the nationalists,
but you have to be invited tothat.
So it's kind of hard to get into, uh, I think that, um, I don't
know, you might be a betterresource on that than me, Tony.
I think that your, these kindsof podcasts are highly
informative.
Um, I, uh, and I, and then I dothink that, um, you know, I'm
(42:06):
around some people like you like, uh, Prescott Cole over at
canner, uh, Shawna Reeves who's,uh, who's the director of elder
financial abuse, elder financialabuse and prevention at the
Institute on aging and is also aboard member of the California
elder justice coalition.
Uh, those are kind of the, thepeople I use.
And like I said, I, I occupiedkind of this strange little
(42:29):
corner of the world.
So, um, I'd certainly be happyto let you know if anybody, but
it's, it's a challenge.
It's difficult because a lot ofwhat I learn about what's going
on is it's through my ownresearch and looking at, uh,
looking at persons of interest,if you will, or, uh, or
(42:51):
enterprises of interest.
Um, I also have, uh, informationthat I get from, you know, from
the, the attorney general herein California, other district
attorneys, the department ofinsurance and all that.
So I don't know, that's reallykind of all I've got would
happen.
Sorry.
That's okay.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
We'll put those in the show notes for our listeners
Speaker 2 (43:12):
And a great resource.
You know, if you think you havea problem, you can call them,
they have an 800 line though.
They'll, they'll get on it foryou.
And they'll find you resources.
If you think as a consumer, ifyou think you're having.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
So just a quick note is will they help with people
outside of California or atleast point you to resources
outside of it?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
I would call them, they will point you to resources
, uh, and, uh, call them with anannuity question.
They'll probably call me, butyeah, they're a, they're a great
organization.
So yeah, they have an 800number.
You can call them all over thecountry.
And, you know, the interestingthing too, is they're interested
in that.
I'm interested in that because alot of these really bad, uh,
(43:53):
enterprises that are out thereare nationwide.
And in fact, some of them don'toperate in California because of
the legislation that we've beenable to pass over the last 10
years to prevent them doing so,but they're all over the rest of
the company.
So we want to know about them.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yeah.
And I think we definitely don'thave time to get into this, but
of course, I'll throw it outthere as a teaser, uh, is that,
I think it's the balance ofregulation and legislation and
free market and the tensionbetween those that leads to
positive or less than positiveresults.
(44:30):
As we talk about, uh, thecompany's not doing business in
California or not sellingcertain products in California
because of the regulations andlegislations that I think that
says something about the valueof having some regulations in
operations and that we shouldn'tbe scared, um, as members of the
(44:53):
insurance industry, byregulations and legislation, as
of course, as we all know issometimes too burdensome.
I know that I've had somelong-term care insurance
applications that approach 40 to50 pages in length.
And then the consumers are givena hundred pages of disclosure
documents, and we all knowexactly how much information the
(45:17):
consumer is going to take and beable to consume, uh, that Ben
number quickly approaches zeroRaider, the number of pages that
are put out there.
So I think the, we all need tounderstand that there's that
balance and that we all play arole in helping out with that
(45:40):
balance.
Um, you know, so Neil, thank youso much for coming on and
sharing your thoughts and, uh,sharing, you know, some of your
experiences with us.
It's been great to have you on,um, just one last quick
question.
Um, where can people learn moreabout you?
(46:01):
Well, um, you can go, I guess mywebsite, I have sort of a funky
website, but it tells me, ittells you my history and all
that.
So that's neat meal,granger.com.
And he, I L G R E G E R.
Um, and, um, I'd better updated.
I, I print principally now I doconsulting expert work.
I'm not doing any testifyingexpert work, but what I, what I
(46:24):
do, what I really am interestedin are these kinds of issues of
my, my main area of emphasis, asI said, is sort of commercial
enterprises directed at, uh,abusing elders financially.
So, um, you can read about me atmy website and, um, you know,
send me an email.
(46:44):
Sounds great.
Sounds great.
And you know, we'll put someinformation in the show notes on
all of this.
Um, so Neil, thank you again forcoming on the, get ready with
Tony Stewart podcast.
It's been a pleasure having youon.
Thanks, Tani.
Great, great service you'redoing here.
Thank you.
So thanks.
Bye bye-bye.
Welcome to the get ready with Tony Stewart podcast.
This episode, I am pleased towelcome my old colleague Neil
chair, Neil, welcome to the getready with Tony Stewart podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thanks Tony.
I'm an old colleague.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Well, you know, old is all relative and old and the
terms of we've known each otherfor
Speaker 2 (00:34):
A long time for a long time.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
So, uh, let's dive into it, uh, before we do, of
course, uh, I'll want to let youknow a little bit about who Neil
is.
Uh, since 2008, Neil has focusedhis practice on consulting and
expert work in the area of elderfinancial abuse prevention.
Neil works with several districtattorney offices as a member of
(01:00):
their financial abuse specialistteams.
He's testified in both criminaland civil cases and works with
the investigative unit of theCalifornia department of
insurance.
Neil also works with theWashington state attorney
general.
Neil's helped draft and hastestified in favor of insurance
legislation, which has helpedstrengthen financial protection
(01:22):
for California.
Seniors.
Neil currently also serves asthe chairman of the California
department of insurancecurriculum board.
And on top of that in case thisisn't enough, Neil is also a
member of the city and County ofSan Francisco's forensic center,
which is a group comprised ofadult protective service workers
(01:42):
representatives from this SanFrancisco County ombudsman city
attorney, district, attorney,police, conservator medical
staff, and others.
As part of this, Neil's also,uh, active with the veterans aid
awareness project, which thisgroup works to publicize and
(02:02):
curtail the financial abuse ofveterans through the improper
use of veterans aid andattendance program by commercial
financial predators is you cansee basically Neil does a lot of
work with regulatory and, uh,enforcement agencies, and he's
even helped write the laws interms of, um, financial abuse
(02:26):
protection.
Neo, am I leaving anything outthere?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I don't think so.
I like long walks on the beach,but other than that, no, I think
you've got everything.
I mean, my, my area practice, II've been in, in, in the
insurance industry since 1984.
My area of practice now is, uh,particularly in the area of
elder financial abuse and, um,more specifically in the, um,
(02:51):
commercial enterprises that aredirected toward the elder abuse
of seniors.
Um, so yeah, you got mucheverything, I think.
All right, well, fantastic.
You and I met on the curriculumboard, so
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, Neil and I served together, I think for
about eight years on, uh, thecurriculum board.
Uh, the curriculum board is aboard that's part of the
California department ofinsurance that oversees, uh,
education and licensingrequirements, uh, for agents in,
uh, the state of California.
So that's where we both comefrom.
(03:28):
And that's where we both, uh,have a common interest is in
promoting best practices in theinsurance industry.
Right.
Uh, which the listeners know canbe a struggle sometimes in the
insurance industry.
And that's why, you know, Neil'sgot a lot to say that will
really give you some things tothink about.
(03:51):
And some good lessons learned aswell as some tips on how to stay
on the right side of things.
Uh, especially when you approacha gray area.
So, you know, Neil, you've donea few things over the course of
your career, and I know youstill continue to do quite a
bit.
You play music, you're part of aband you've done construction,
(04:13):
you know, and then somehow youended up doing insurance
litigation and elder financialprotection.
I mean, what was the path to getyou here and how do you tie all
this together?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Uh, kind of unlike you, my brother is also a guy
like Tony, where, uh, you know,he's, uh, he has a background in
finance, um, came out of collegewith a finance degree.
Uh, I actually came out ofcollege with a music degree.
And so I was a professionalmusician for several years.
I'll always have had an interestin, uh, in kind of, for lack of
(04:47):
a better term kind of blue, bluecollar stuff.
Uh, so I actually began, uh,working also as most musicians
do they pick up a day job out,uh, fixing cars.
So I managed a couple of shopsand, um, uh, back in, uh, 1984,
uh, a guy came in to have hiscar serviced and he had an
(05:08):
insurance general agency.
And so he said, Hey, look, youseem like you're reasonably
presentable.
Uh, maybe you'd like to, youknow, sell insurance.
And if you do let me know.
And so that's how I got in.
I became licensed in 1984 as alife, uh, life.
I think it was life and hell, Ican't remember, but anyway, the
life and health producer and,um, it was kind of an exciting
(05:30):
time in, in the insurance.
And I think you've been in it aslong as I have, I think Tony,
and that was a prettyinteresting time because that
was these guys that I worked forhad this novel idea about this
product called term insurance.
So typically what was availableback then was traditional whole
life policies.
And as you know, um, the wholelife policies were pretty
(05:53):
expensive from a premiumstandpoint.
So, uh, or purchasing them,weren't able to get the volume
of insurance.
They needed to protect theirfamilies because the premiums
were so high, they were based onoutdated actuarial assumptions
and things like that.
So the agency I went to work forfor curiously was, uh, was
(06:15):
focused on the idea of, um, youknow, what we really need to do
is get clients enoughprotection.
So you know, that if a,particularly if a breadwinner
were die, that the family wouldbe able to, to continue to, even
though it would not be the samelifestyle, at least financially,
it would be a salvageablesituation where, or the
(06:35):
financial aspect of it.
Uh, it didn't have to worryabout.
So, so we began selling a lot ofdifferent kinds of term
insurance and a whole bunch ofcompanies probably don't exist
anymore.
Um, but people could buyaffordably young families was
what I worked with.
The other thing that the agencyI did, they had, uh, they had
originated this mortgage, uh,insurance program where, you
(06:57):
know, people would get a card inthe mail saying, you know, you
just took out a mortgage, youknow, this whole thing, this is
very common practice now, but itwasn't then.
So term insurance was arelatively new thing.
Mortgage leads, if you will,that's our, we've got our leads
were new.
And so I had the opportunity togo in and out of a lot of
houses, all the meetings backthen were done.
(07:18):
Face-to-face in fact, a lot ofthe insurance companies
prohibited, uh, selling over thephone.
Well, the internet course didn'texist.
So I would take my horse andbuggy up to somebody's house and
, and sit down with them and,and work with them.
So, so that was kind of how Igot started.
And then shortly after I gotstarted, some of the better, the
(07:38):
new at that time interestsensitive cash value products
came in a sensitive whole lifeproducts, the, uh, universal
life first universal lifepolicies, uh, also, uh, began to
show up, uh, in addition to thatlong-term care was something
that, um, that was a beginningback in, I guess it was the late
(08:00):
eighties.
We also had some pretty gooddisability policy.
So my career started sellingterm life insurance.
And, you know, I workedprimarily because of my
background, I guess, and becauseI was really comfortable with,
uh, kind of blue collar folks, Iworked kind of blue collar
areas.
We all had areas we worked.
And so, uh, I enjoyed it.
I enjoy meeting people, gettingto know their families and, and
(08:22):
helping them figure out anaffordable way to, uh, to get
coverage.
They wanted.
It was an exciting time.
It may be hard if somebody'sgetting into the business.
Yeah.
Um, right around that.
But, um, so that's how I gotstarted.
And then I became a partnershipcertified with lawn care, and we
watched that whole long-termcare insurance debacle unfold
(08:43):
probably together from differentcounties at that time.
Um, watch the first-generationof products come in and then the
products that were price-drivencome in.
Uh, so that was kinda how I gotstarted.
Um, and that, that was prettymuch, I worked for the agency
for a number of years.
And then I went out on my own.
(09:03):
I became a general agent with,uh, with Ohio national life and,
uh, began to sell my ownproducts, not just with them,
but with other people too.
So, uh, kind of took the 10 stepback from selling in, in, in, in
the early two thousands.
Uh, I had a thriving wine cellarbusiness then.
So I was doing that.
(09:24):
I got back into, um, I got backinto the expert side of things
about, that's kind of the,that's kind of the thumbnail, I
think more than you wanted, but,
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Well, I think it's good because you know, it, it,
you've had a lot of experienceand you've seen the life and
health industry changedramatically.
And I think for those who are onthe property casualty side,
there's a big difference,especially with life insurance,
with property and casualtyinsurance insurance is about
(09:57):
insurance.
It's about protecting the riskand paying for the pure
protection of the risk.
You know, of course there'sother components involved with
that, but there there's nothingthat anybody gets back after a
certain period of time, perhapsthey might get a small dividend
on their workers' compensationinsurance or something of that
(10:17):
nature, or, you know, it'sminimal.
However, in insurance, the lifeinsurance, traditionally people
had cash value, life insurancepolicies, which they got to
return their cash value.
Now, as we all know, there'snothing free in life right now.
Right,
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Right.
Right.
And actually I think, uh, my jobat that point, um, was to
educate people about insuranceand because I would, we would, I
would run into people every day,every week I saw probably eight
to 10 people a week who had cashvalue, life insurance.
And of course, part of my rolewas to say, you know, what, what
(10:58):
insurance is about is it's aboutprotection.
It's, that's common with a proin common with property
casualty, but most of thesefolks have been sold.
These insurance policies toldthem it was a great way to save
money.
And so a lot of what we had todo early in the, um, in the, in,
in my career was to educatepeople about, look, this is a
(11:20):
final paycheck for you.
So what we have to do is ratherthan working from the premium
backwards, in other words,figuring out how much you can
spend and then, uh, and then, uh, providing you with an
expensive whole life policy whenyou've got two young kids at
home or something like that,let's talk about how much
insurance you really need if youwere to buy, uh, why do agents
(11:40):
sell your whole life insurance?
Cause they'd rather talk aboutsaving money than about you
being dead, but you got to talkabout you.
And so that was a lot of where Iwent with.
It was, you know, this is aboutlife insurance.
There are lots of ways to savemoney.
Uh, you know, if you want tosave money, pay off your credit
card.
Right.
But anyway, uh, so, so a lot ofit was just explaining to people
(12:02):
that, um, the amount ofinsurance that they actually
needed was far higher thanthey'd been told that they
needed.
And also to help them understandthat there are ways to
affordably, especially for ayoung family where their
expenses are high, their need isthe brain is you've got young
kids, you've got a need forinsurance.
If something happens to you, yougot to provide for them.
How do you do that?
(12:22):
Well, you do it affordably.
And so a lot of our job backthen was to educate people about
what term insurance was.
And actually Tony, it'sinteresting.
You'd go to the property andcasualty because that's what I
talked about.
I mindset, well, look, you know,if you have, if you drive your
car around for a year and youdon't have a wreck, the
insurance company doesn't go,wow, that's great.
Here's$5,000.
They, they take the money that'sout terminal.
(12:45):
And so that was a lot of what wewere doing back then was getting
people to understand, uh, theyhad a higher need than they
thought, and they didn't have topay as much as they thought they
had.
Um, it was go ahead.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I was going to say, and I think that underlines one
of the best practices, uh, youknow, uh, that I implemented, I
know you, you helped me puttogether the financial
principles and that financialprinciple is to get the coverage
that you need rather than haveit be based upon anything else.
(13:20):
And I think, you know, that'seven in homeowner's insurances,
you know, taking a look at thereplacement property, uh, the
replacement value of theproperty currently, and making
sure that those parameters areup to speed where in life
insurance, traditionally, thatwas not the question.
Uh, the question wasn't reallyabout assessing the property
(13:41):
risk.
It was about how much insurancecould somebody buy or how much
premium,
Speaker 2 (13:46):
How much could you afford.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Now let's get right to the heart of the matter,
because what you've beeninvolved with and where you and
I have found a lot of commoninterests is in ancient misdeeds
and company misdeeds.
And I think that those prettymuch, I would say, I don't think
I've seen any that have stemmedfrom term insurance if you Emil.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
No, no.
Uh, term insurance is a, uh,maybe it's a, self-selection
kind of a thing where if you'reselling term insurance, you're
already as an agent, you'realready committed to helping
people find the right amount ofcoverage.
They have, most of the time I'veseen problems, it's with the
cash value insurance and that'sbecause cash value insurance
(14:31):
premiums are higher.
Typically commission rates arehigher.
Uh, and I think a lot of timesthe agencies seldom are, are
not, maybe not particularly aswell, educated as they might be
about them and how they work
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Well.
And I think that's, there'sactually two lessons in there.
One is, and I think this is atheme we'll continue to head on
through this episode is thatit's all about the customer.
It's not about the advisor.
It's not about the broker.
It's not about the insurancecompany.
It's about serving the customerand getting them a good product.
(15:09):
And no matter what line ofinsurance coverage or outside of
insurance, you know, whatfinancial product you're
representing, it's about findingthe thing that fits the client's
needs and getting them the bestproduct.
And then the second part thatyou hit on is the educational
component.
Because I think that if youeducate the clients and the
(15:31):
clients truly understand whatthey need is you're not going to
have too many problems with yourbook of business.
I mean, would you agree withthat meal?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
And what I used to tell myclients and my colleagues did
too, was if, if you don'tunderstand what I'm talking
about here, or if you don'tunderstand what I want you to
purchase, then don't buy itbecause my job is, um, my job is
to overcome kind of the naturalconflict of interest that maybe
insurance commission tradesbased people have with their
(16:02):
clients and make sure that youunderstand what you need.
Number one, and give you optionsas to ways that you can make
that happen.
And so, um, I think that theeducational component of it is
extremely important and it's thefirst thing that, um, that, uh,
I would do.
And it was the first thing thatthis agency I worked with
(16:24):
required us to do, you know, youhave to go in and make sure
people understand, uh, whatyou're, what they're buying and
then if they understand it andif there's full disclosure and
if they're given options, thenyou know, your, your potential
for problems drops asterisk bydoing.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah.
So if there's anybody here witha errors and emissions company,
this is the lesson to promote,to, uh, be agents who are
insured with you.
And on the flip side for agentsand companies, if you don't want
to spend quality time with yourerrors and emissions company,
uh, yeah, I think these likethat.
(17:04):
So, you know, let's, you know,I, I know you've got so many
cases that you work on that arejust fascinating.
Um, do you want to share maybewhat you consider your most
interesting, fascinating case?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Well, there, there are a couple, I mean, um, I
can't really give you a namename, but My first of course, my
first case I did as an expertwitness was, was very
interesting because it was a, amajor class action lawsuit
against an insurance company whowas using their, um, their
(17:38):
general agencies and their,their, their field offices to
promote, um, trusts and trustmills.
And so they were, um, they wereworking along with the, uh,
their, uh, FMS and their, andtheir general agencies to give
them materials in order to havethe, uh, the agents put on
(18:01):
senior seminars and talk abouthow people need to trust and
then using the trusts as apretext for selling annuities
and a pretty bad annuity.
So I think for me, that was aninteresting case in the sense
that it was the first time I'dreally seen that, that this was
an enterprise, you know, that,that an insurance company was
(18:22):
looking at this.
You had a lot of insurancecompany, um, people who were
myopically sort of fixed uponthe marketing of these products,
and I'm not entirely sure thatthey really saw what was wrong
with it.
They just saw, this was a waythat we could get our products
out in the field.
That's pretty common.
First case was reallyinteresting that way, uh, for a
(18:44):
couple of reasons.
And I think maybe for some ofour listeners, it might be
interesting because it was thefirst case where I saw that what
the insurance company did was tosay, we're just giving you this
information, the agents,whatever the agents do with it
has nothing to do with us.
So, so I said, wow, this isinteresting.
Um, the insurance companies arethrowing the agents under the
(19:06):
bus, you know, so that was from,and being an agent myself.
That was a really interesting,um, interesting thing to me.
And it's also one of the earlycases I did was with a large
insurance company back East, andthey were doing the same thing.
They were marketing, I believethey were four 57 plans to their
clients who were CPAs.
(19:27):
And so these CPAs would go outand sell these plans to people
who were in their late eightiesor mid eighties, early eighties.
And there was no way to fund theplan properly.
There was no way that they coulddisperse the money out of the
plan properly was it was clearlyfinancial elder abuse, but the
people who were pushing it atthe home office, this concept,
(19:47):
the marketing people who werelooking at a way to increase
business, right.
Um, and at the same time therewas, there was no everything was
so compartmentalize.
Um, you can draw your ownconclusions about why that's
done.
Uh, everything was socompartmentalized to the company
that nobody had to take ultimateresponsibility for this whole
(20:11):
enterprise.
So the company saying, well, youknow, we have these marketing
people, they do that.
Uh, all our products are, are,uh, you know, compliant with the
department of insurance.
Uh, you know, and, and, uh, ofcourse that was before we had a
lot of the, a lot of themandatory disclosure document.
And so to me, that wasfascinating because it was the
(20:33):
first time I saw where a companycould structure their whole
oversight operations so thatnobody actually had to take
responsibility for the bank.
I think, again, it was an underit underscored for me.
Uh, if you're an agent that thecompany's first line of defense
and I've in the litigation workthat I've done.
(20:55):
And even in the, in the criminalwork and things like that, the
first companies I have a goodcriminal case first company is
lineup.
The company's first line ofdefense is to say, well, the
agents aren't our employees andthey did this on their own.
And we certainly wouldn't, uh,wouldn't, uh, uh, condone this.
Uh, a lot of times when you, indiscovery, you go through the
(21:17):
documents you find out, actuallythey did know one fun criminal
case, and I can actually giveyou the guy's name, a guy named
Jeffrey Milton in San Diego.
It was my first criminal case.
I, I testified at hispreliminary hearing.
He ran a trust mill.
And if you don't know what atrust mill is, you, you might
want to look that up.
Basically, a trust mill as anenterprise where a trust, the
(21:40):
creation of a trust is used as apretext to obtain someone's
financial information.
That information then is, uh,uh, those assets are then
converted into annuity.
So the scam has to have a seniorseminar recommend that somebody
get a trust having now having anattorney with you or not in this
case, I'm not sure if there wasa real attorney involved, this
(22:01):
guy would set up these press andthen get a list of all the
seniors assets.
And then he would sell them anannuity.
Unfortunately, the annuity thathe sold them was, uh, typed up
at his own house.
So he set up a nonprofit, heactually set up a nonprofit.
Wow.
And, and he would, and so onthis, it was actually, I think
(22:23):
it, I believe it was sort of a,like an audience asterick exit
annuity.
He just took all the aunts, hisname off it, put it on hand, but
on his and, uh, would, wouldpocket the money.
So he just pocket the money.
He didn't, he wasn't selling it.
Wasn't there was no insurancecompany involved.
That was an interesting one.
He went, ended up going toprison, I think, because he'd
done it multiple times.
(22:44):
So a couple of there.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah.
Well, I think, you know, we'reseeing a couple of key takeaways
is responsibility.
Uh, the farming out ofresponsibility, especially as,
uh, the insurance industry andthe financial services industry
has these very, uh, spread outdistribution networks.
I mean, we saw it recently, evenwith Wells Fargo where it wasn't
(23:09):
a distributed network where itwas Wells Fargo internally, uh,
promoting fraudulent sales thatI think, you know, everybody
along the process has to beresponsible for themselves and
understand their role.
But I think that we all need totake a bigger, uh, look at the
bigger picture.
(23:30):
I mean, when you agree mealsthat, you know, you have to take
a look at the forest that we'reall operating in rather than the
trees.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah.
I think, I think you do, youhave to have a much broader
range of, uh, of focus than youused to have.
And, and, you know, you're anagent, uh, or you're a general
agent, um, uh, you, you reallyhave to be aware of best
practices and you have to reallybe, um, aware of what the
(23:58):
requirements are for you.
Um, and you have to go above andbeyond those, I believe to make
sure that you're making fulldisclosure, that you're, you're
behaving in an ethical way.
Um, a lot of what I used to hearin these meetings I'd go to as
well, you know, we've got a, youknow, we don't have to worry
about it if it gets pretty ugly.
(24:18):
I mean, I've sat in ondepositions of agents and it's
not fun.
So anything you can do to avoid,uh, being in that situation is
really important.
And, um, so as an agent, if youmake sure you dot all the I's
and cross the T's and you doyour best practice, and also you
understand the broader range ofwhat what's going on out in the
(24:40):
market, that's very important.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
That's great.
Yeah.
I think that's great tips.
I know I've done a couple ofdepositions and it's something
I, I got to say actually gettinga root canal was much more
peaceful because at least Icould turn on my iPhone and
listen to some music,
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Nitrous oxide.
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So, you know, when you can compare a root canal
favorably to something, I thinkthat kind of gives you an idea.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And it's really not about the deposition.
And I do believe, I mean, it is,and it isn't, but, you know, um,
as an agent, if you're sellinginsurance, uh, the way you get
to a deposition is by not beingaware of the perhaps unintended
consequences of your actions.
And, um, that's why, you know,here in California, we're lucky
(25:31):
we have a lot of elderprotections in place via the
insurance code.
Um, but as a producer, you stillhave to go above and beyond
that, make sure you documenteverything, uh, make sure that
you, uh, that you keep notes oneverything.
Uh, if you're dealing with anolder senior, um, get their
family involved, uh, make surethat full disclosure is given,
(25:54):
make sure you understand theproducts that you sell.
I mean, a lot of the agents, alot of the agents that I've seen
in a lot of the cases I've beeninvolved with, it's absolutely
clear, uh, that the, uh, thatthe agent doesn't know the
product they're just told tosell it because of the
commission.
Uh, one of the first cases Idid, in fact, the first case I
did, uh, expert testimony on wasa case where the agent sold an
(26:19):
84 year old illiterate,cognitively impaired guy, uh,
$660,000 worth of annuities,really bad annuities.
I think mission on them was 16%,something like that.
So you do the math indeposition, the agent didn't
know what an annuitant was.
So educate yourself, make sureyou know what you're doing.
(26:42):
Yeah.
And educate your clients
Speaker 1 (26:44):
As well.
And I think that's, you know,it's a lesson that we can all
take is, you know, that all ofour clients age and as they age,
um, you know, we have to beaware, uh, of cognitive changes,
right.
With our clients and, uh,familiarize with ourselves.
I'm going to ask you about thatin just a sec, but I, there,
(27:06):
there was one other point, but Ithink it may be slowly slipping
away.
So I'll give back to you in aminute, send me okay.
I'm 67.
I know that as we go here is,um, you know, what can agents
do?
And, uh, insurance companies,do, you know, this is going to
be a bigger issue with thebringing of America in
(27:27):
monitoring our clients.
And as a company, you know, abook of business as Americans
age, and we run into some ofthese issues where the clients
may be losing some of theircognitive function.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah.
I think that's, that's a realissue.
And, uh, I previously mentioned,I think one thing that you can
do as an agent, it's, it's kindof, kind of a hassle, you know,
um, but trying to get the familyinvolved, like they're
typically, like, I know, youknow, we just lost my father, my
mother, and father-in-law thisyear and my dad passed away a
while ago.
(28:02):
But as a, as their kids, mybrother and I were, were
intimately involved in, um,making, helping them make
financial decisions as theybecame older.
So, so, um, my sense is that if,if you're, if you're an agent,
you kind of know what you shoulddo.
And, um, that would be, um, toput the interests of the client
(28:25):
ahead of, uh, the interest inmaking a sale.
Um, and to make sure that youclient has the resources
together.
And I don't mean financialresources necessarily.
I mean, the family resources,the support, um, together, uh,
to, uh, to be able toresponsibly make decisions.
You know, a lot of times Iwould, if they had an estate
(28:47):
planning attorney, I would meetwith the attorney and talk about
what, what might be best.
Uh, I'd also recommend to peoplethat they, uh, that they get
fee-based planners and that theyuse a fee-based planner to help
them tell them what they need todo, and then they can shop for
it with agents from the agent'sperspective.
I think it's full disclosure,it's, uh, giving people choices,
(29:09):
um, universally in, uh, and I, Idon't, I can't say this about
much, but, uh, universally inthe cases I've looked at.
And again, I look at a lot ofcases every month because I work
with the city and County of SanFrancisco.
I also work with some districtattorneys.
And so then the attorney generalthings like that, department of
insurance, universally, uh, I'vesaid that three times now people
(29:35):
are only shown one product.
They're only shown one productand they're told this is it.
Um, that to me is a big redflag.
So if you're a producer andyou're out there talking to
people and you're working withseniors, I would say that what
you can do is first of all, makesure that they have the people
with them who can help them makethe decision in an informed way.
(29:57):
That's the point of the 24 hournotice law in San Francisco in,
in California is that, uh, theagent has to give written notice
to the Sr 24 hours before theymeet with them so that the
senior has the option of havingpeople there or not being there
at all themselves.
Um, so that's, that's the onething and I lost the thread on
the other, but then it wouldalso be to, uh, to make sure
(30:21):
that you show, uh, a number ofproducts and also to make, you
know, to give people time, tomake their decisions.
And a lot of that isantithetical to the sales
process as we, you know, you'resupposed to go in and uploads
them, that kind of, but again,work with their resources.
Um, another thing that we'veseen in elder abuse cases, uh,
one of the red flags is when yousee a senior, who's been asked
(30:44):
to change their CPA and theirattorney and their insurance
agent all at one time, becausethat's starting to look like
some kind of an enterprise to methey're isolating the senior,
uh, isolating the senior fromtheir support system in order to
manipulate them into, intopurchasing the inappropriate
products or services.
So those are the kinds of thingsyou can do, kind of ease into
(31:07):
using the support network thatthe senior has to help them make
decisions, to make sure that thefamily knows what's going on.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Okay.
So, you know, and that, thatleads to the next question is,
so let's say you're part of thedistribution chain, but once or
twice removed either you're aninsurance wholesaler, general
agent, you know, what have you,or you're an insurance company.
How do you, when you're removedfrom the client, uh, monitor
(31:38):
this process of what tools canbe implemented to put in some
best practices,
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Why look at the agent report, that's where I started.
You know, if you're a carrier,develop an agent report that's
comprehensive.
Um, and if you're, if you're acarrier or you're a general
agent, um, here's what I foundin litigation is that, that, you
know, the agent report does notbecome part of the contract.
The application does.
(32:07):
And often what happens is, isthat the agent report is what
the agent uses to sell the caseto the insurance company.
You know, how much money theyhave, where is it?
Do they have this experience,that experience that kind of, a
lot of times the agent reportdoes not agree with the required
disclosure documents in theapplication.
And so that's one place I wouldstart make sure that the agent
(32:30):
report is, has parallelinformation to the information
on the annuity disclosure formsthat are, that are, uh, that are
, uh, given with theapplication, make sure that the
client has an illustration.
Um, a lot of the abuses I'veseen are, uh, uh, I showed it to
(32:52):
them on the computer.
Yeah.
And there's some insurancecompanies that accept that like,
Oh, I showed them a computerillustration.
Um, make sure they have signed,signed, uh, make sure they show
the whole illustration.
You, and I've seen this, youknow, it's like nine pages long
and they get one page with whiteout all over it or something.
So, um, I think if you'reupstream in the distribution
(33:15):
network, um, make sure that, uh,make sure that any kind of look
at, look at datings on trust.
See if it's, uh, generated,backtrack that, uh, look at the
pattern.
If you're a company, look at thepattern of the agent's behavior.
Often you find, uh, the badplayers have consistent behavior
(33:38):
across their entire clientele.
And, um, take a few minutes andlook at that, uh, look at where
the checks are coming from.
See if you're getting two partychecks, see if, see, if agents
are doing 10 35 exchange onpolicies.
When, when appropriate, a lot ofagents will have, um, we'll have
their clients, um, surrendertheir existing annuities and
(34:02):
then take the money and give itto the new company so that they
can avoid having the companyhaving to answer that question,
which says, are you replacingany annuities with this new one?
And they say, no.
And then they have the client,uh, am I giving a how to manual
here?
I hope not the client surrendertheir existing annuities and
then take money and put it intothe new one.
(34:25):
Of course, two or three yearslater, it turns out, Oh, they
got constructive receipt of avalue.
And now the IRS is after them.
And, and, and actually a numberof agents have been caught that
way, that the client gets an IRSnotice saying, you owe X,
thousands of dollars in taxes.
And they're like, well, but I, Iexchanged my annuity.
No, you didn't use surrenderedit.
And then you wrote a new checkor the, my favorite you
(34:48):
surrendered it.
And then you endorse the back ofthe check to the new company and
the new company took it.
They took us, they took us, theytook a second party check.
So, uh, anyway, that's, that'smy little rant on that.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Well, you know, I, I think, uh, you know, some of
that of courses, uh, veryspecific to annuities and some,
a little bit to life insurance,but I think the bigger lessons
for the entire financialservices industry is the Finner
role of know your customer.
Right.
You know, that's what you're, ifI understand correctly, that's
(35:19):
what you're saying about theagent support.
And I think that's something,you know, I don't know to what
extent property and casualtycompanies, uh, use as farms.
But I think with the graying ofAmerica, it's something that all
firms should be using.
I think they should beimplementing, you know, with
some of those, they almostborder on money laundering rules
(35:41):
is endorsing of checks andtaking a look at those co party
checks and where the checks arecoming from, uh, you know, their
property and casualty people canalso be part of that process and
the property and casualtyinsurance companies, property
and casualty insurance agentswho are often using escrow
accounts, uh, that the insurancecompanies, you know, I don't
(36:03):
know to some degree.
So if we have listeners outthere, uh, my, my area of
knowledge is minimal here, but,uh, you know, is the monitoring
and practices that you set uparound the escrow accounts?
Uh,
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yeah.
I know nothing about that, butthat's, that's interesting.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah.
So, you know, there's areas thatwe can all take, uh, you know,
uh, from all facets of theinsurance industry.
And if you're a consumer who'slistening to this, that the
lesson is, you know, to payattention, to, to know what's
going on, to become educated, totake a look at, you know, like
(36:42):
you said, if a guy's printing upannuities, uh, you know, on his
typewriter, you know, if you'rebuying it from Bob's mutual
insurance company, that might bea tip off, um, is that you want
to make sure you're doingbusiness with a legitimate agent
and a insurance company, andwe're fortunate enough to have,
(37:05):
uh, the internet where you caneasily do research.
Uh, sometimes it is hard to tellif a company is real or not.
I mean, Bernie Madoff got awaywith his shenanigans for decades
and fooled.
Some people who possibly shouldhave known better.
Um, however, you know, lot ofthe stuff it's just like getting
(37:26):
the phishing emails, you canpretty much tell when there's a
misspelling and instead of, uh,you know, state farm, it says
state farmers, you know, butmaybe there's something wrong
there that state farm probablyknows how to spell their name by
now.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
They probably do.
Yeah, they've done it.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
So I think the things that we can all learn, um, so
Neil, uh, you know, w we're notgoing to have time to really get
into legislation, unfortunately.
So definitely we'll want to haveyou on for that, but I'm sure,
you know, a couple, couplequestions, you know, I want to
leave on is, you know, how canpeople stay on top of, um, these
(38:12):
developments and stay ahead ofthe curve?
Speaker 2 (38:15):
It's hard to do, um, you know, consumers, I think you
can, um, department of insurancehas some stuff on their website,
but there are some, um, thereare some, uh, entities out
there, a couple of nonprofitsthat I think have good
information on this.
Uh, I mean, Tony, I think onething you can do is get your
book, because I think that, Ithink that, and I was not paid
(38:38):
to say that because I think thatthe big problem is that, uh, as
a consumer, uh, the big issue isthat, you know, you have to take
some responsibility on yourselfand it has to be, you know, you
have to put a little bit ofeffort in of good effort in to
understand your own situation.
(38:59):
And if you get a book like theget ready book, um, and I've
actually given that to mydaughter, my wife has she's
filling it out.
Uh it's um, it's the kind ofthing where it gets your
information in one place whereyou can look at it.
So I think that you can startwith a resource, like, well, any
of your books, really, but toget ready to book, it's really
good for a way of havingeverything in one place.
(39:21):
Then I think, you know, educateyourself.
Um, you could go on a websitelike the California advocates
for, uh, California advocatesfor, I just forgot their name,
canner, California advocates,quantum care, anyway, uh,
canter.org.
They have a lot of resources on,um, Medi-Cal veteran's aid and
(39:42):
attendance, wills, trusts agingin place.
How the, how the nursing homesystems work and all that, uh,
they also have an 800 number.
So we actually have a hotlineyou can call in, if you have any
questions or you think there'ssomething fishy going on, you
can call California advocatesfor nursing home.
That's it.
I got it.
Call them up and they can talkto you about it.
(40:04):
There's also the Californiaelder justice coalition.
They have a lot of goodresources on their website, CDI,
uh, California department ofinsurance has stuff too, but the
way I think too, that's part ofwhat you can do.
And if you're a producer, uh,some of these nonprofits like
Cantor has a conference everyyear, I go to the conference and
(40:26):
spend a couple of days talkingto people who are in this field.
Um, it's harder to findinformation on financial abuse
of seniors than it is physicalabuse, but what's becoming
rapidly recognized is that it's,it's a real, it's a real
problem.
So staying in front of thosetrends, I think that that would
(40:46):
be how I would do it.
Uh, anything you can do as aproducer to, um, to further
educate yourself around thiswill make you more valuable to
you for your clients.
And certainly as a guy who'saging, I want to have people
around who, uh, who noticestuff.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Yeah, well, and I think that's so important is
that, you know, across, uh, thewhole distribution line, ending
with a consumer as a part of thedistribution line of a financial
service product and theecosystem is that we should all
be paying attention to theseresources that are being put out
there by various non-profits andregulatory bodies take it upon
(41:30):
ourselves to stay current, uh,with the issues are, um, are
there any, uh, thought leadersin this area or newsletters or
websites that put out regularinformation, you might suggest
to people,
Speaker 2 (41:43):
You know, I'm, I'm kind of in this weird little
call to SAC and I'm part of alist serve for the nationalists,
but you have to be invited tothat.
So it's kind of hard to get into, uh, I think that, um, I don't
know, you might be a betterresource on that than me, Tony.
I think that your, these kindsof podcasts are highly
informative.
Um, I, uh, and I, and then I dothink that, um, you know, I'm
(42:06):
around some people like you like, uh, Prescott Cole over at
canner, uh, Shawna Reeves who's,uh, who's the director of elder
financial abuse, elder financialabuse and prevention at the
Institute on aging and is also aboard member of the California
elder justice coalition.
Uh, those are kind of the, thepeople I use.
And like I said, I, I occupiedkind of this strange little
(42:29):
corner of the world.
So, um, I'd certainly be happyto let you know if anybody, but
it's, it's a challenge.
It's difficult because a lot ofwhat I learn about what's going
on is it's through my ownresearch and looking at, uh,
looking at persons of interest,if you will, or, uh, or
(42:51):
enterprises of interest.
Um, I also have, uh, informationthat I get from, you know, from
the, the attorney general herein California, other district
attorneys, the department ofinsurance and all that.
So I don't know, that's reallykind of all I've got would
happen.
Sorry.
That's okay.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
We'll put those in the show notes for our listeners
Speaker 2 (43:12):
And a great resource.
You know, if you think you havea problem, you can call them,
they have an 800 line though.
They'll, they'll get on it foryou.
And they'll find you resources.
If you think as a consumer, ifyou think you're having.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
So just a quick note is will they help with people
outside of California or atleast point you to resources
outside of it?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
I would call them, they will point you to resources
, uh, and, uh, call them with anannuity question.
They'll probably call me, butyeah, they're a, they're a great
organization.
So yeah, they have an 800number.
You can call them all over thecountry.
And, you know, the interestingthing too, is they're interested
in that.
I'm interested in that because alot of these really bad, uh,
(43:53):
enterprises that are out thereare nationwide.
And in fact, some of them don'toperate in California because of
the legislation that we've beenable to pass over the last 10
years to prevent them doing so,but they're all over the rest of
the company.
So we want to know about them.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yeah.
And I think we definitely don'thave time to get into this, but
of course, I'll throw it outthere as a teaser, uh, is that,
I think it's the balance ofregulation and legislation and
free market and the tensionbetween those that leads to
positive or less than positiveresults.
(44:30):
As we talk about, uh, thecompany's not doing business in
California or not sellingcertain products in California
because of the regulations andlegislations that I think that
says something about the valueof having some regulations in
operations and that we shouldn'tbe scared, um, as members of the
(44:53):
insurance industry, byregulations and legislation, as
of course, as we all know issometimes too burdensome.
I know that I've had somelong-term care insurance
applications that approach 40 to50 pages in length.
And then the consumers are givena hundred pages of disclosure
documents, and we all knowexactly how much information the
(45:17):
consumer is going to take and beable to consume, uh, that Ben
number quickly approaches zeroRaider, the number of pages that
are put out there.
So I think the, we all need tounderstand that there's that
balance and that we all play arole in helping out with that
(45:40):
balance.
Um, you know, so Neil, thank youso much for coming on and
sharing your thoughts and, uh,sharing, you know, some of your
experiences with us.
It's been great to have you on,um, just one last quick
question.
Um, where can people learn moreabout you?
(46:01):
Well, um, you can go, I guess mywebsite, I have sort of a funky
website, but it tells me, ittells you my history and all
that.
So that's neat meal,granger.com.
And he, I L G R E G E R.
Um, and, um, I'd better updated.
I, I print principally now I doconsulting expert work.
I'm not doing any testifyingexpert work, but what I, what I
(46:24):
do, what I really am interestedin are these kinds of issues of
my, my main area of emphasis, asI said, is sort of commercial
enterprises directed at, uh,abusing elders financially.
So, um, you can read about me atmy website and, um, you know,
send me an email.
(46:44):
Sounds great.
Sounds great.
And you know, we'll put someinformation in the show notes on
all of this.
Um, so Neil, thank you again forcoming on the, get ready with
Tony Stewart podcast.
It's been a pleasure having youon.
Thanks, Tani.
Great, great service you'redoing here.
Thank you.
So thanks.
Bye bye-bye.
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