North Carolina regulators requested a choose this week to liquidate two insurance companies—a step that might ultimately shut down the companies and recoup cash for policyholders.
Several policyholders with Colorado Bankers Life Insurance and Bankers Life Insurance—the 2 companies affected by the submitting—cheered the state’s transfer and are longing for liquidation, which may set off funds in limbo for years.
“I am relieved to hear that the court is taking action, and I look forward to a, hopefully, quick resolution to the nightmare that has taken a toll on my wife and me,” Neil Martin, an 84-year-old policyholder, stated in an e mail. “We need our money!”
Payments could be lined by state warranty associations, which again the insurance annuities largely at situation, very similar to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. ensures financial institution accounts. In North Carolina the warranty restrict is $300,000. The state Department of Insurance had hoped to keep away from liquidation as a result of policyholders gained’t see payouts above these state-by-state limits.
Lindberg has repeatedly accused Causey and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of railroading him, however these arguments haven’t moved judges or North Carolina’s lawyer common.
Lindberg stated via a spokeswoman Wednesday that the liquidation submitting will solely delay funds and that he has “a ready and willing buyer” ready to buy his insurance companies. A sale would get policyholders their cash “in a matter of months,” Lindberg stated. Lindberg, and his Durham-based holding firm, Global Growth, wouldn’t establish the potential purchaser, citing a nondisclosure settlement.
Lindberg and the chief he picked to run Global Growth whereas he was in jail say there isn’t a shortfall.
“The sale we’re negotiating and the rehabilitation plan we proposed to Commissioner Causey would fully protect policyholders without a single policyholder loss,” Global Growth chief govt Justin Holbrook stated in a press release.
“Of all the developments in this case, this one has to be the oddest,” Holbrook stated. “We’re trying to work toward a resolution that would fully protect all policyholders, and at the last minute, Commissioner Causey has filed a petition to liquidate Global Growth’s affiliated insurance companies.”
He was convicted in 2020 of attempting to bribe Causey and sentenced to greater than seven years in federal jail. That conviction acquired tossed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which stated the choose in Lindberg’s case gave the jury dangerous directions.
Lindberg is ready for retrial in March and maintains his innocence, saying Causey set him up as a result of Lindberg supported Causey’s opponent in the 2016 election for insurance commissioner.
Two different Lindberg companies, Southland National Insurance Corporation and a re-insurer known as Southland National Reinsurance Corporation, are additionally in rehabilitation with the state, however they’re not affected by this week’s submitting.
The state filed for liquidation for Southland National Insurance Corporation in March 2021. That liquidation, which can also be opposed by Lindberg and his holding firm, stays pending.
The timeframe of the Southland liquidation effort isn’t essentially an indicator of how lengthy the brand new liquidation petition would take to be applied. Department of Insurance spokesman Jason Tyson stated the Southland liquidation has “extenuating circumstances unique to that filing.”
