LET THE BUYER BEWARE!

Conseco Senior Health converted to a trust: Senior Healthcare Company of Pennsylvania

BY BILL SILVERMAN

The commissioner of insurance of Pennsylvania has chosen to disenfranchise thousands of senior citizens with a mere stroke of his official pen. He chose to be covert, to quote laws to support his decision. Thousands of senior long-term care policies were placed in an independent trust, immediately downgraded by A. M. Best, the premier insurance rating agency. The affected policyholders were not informed of the trust that held their policies.

BEST characterized the trust as a stand-alone entity with insufficient starting capital, and proposed the trust will have to impose a series of rate increases to survive. Furthermore, the trust does not have a statutory minimum capital reserve requirement, nor the necessary oversight for its operations.

Of late, business charlatans have become the topic of the day. They are regularly grilled by congressional committees for transgressions against the public trust.

Some slip through the cracks, yet violate standards of simple decency with silent efficiency.

Creation of the trust was pre-labled a balanced solution with complete transparancy. One wonders, for whom?

The truth be told, this trust conveniently relieved Conseco of a failing block of 142,000 policies; their policies, now not their policies. A simple case of silent corruption, bowing to the mighty.

And who are the true beneficiaries of this clever manipulation of law? Not really hard to imagine: The stockholders!

How does the commissioner slot into this deception?