KWS Goes to Bat For Mega Insurance Company
Our purported insurance regulator, Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart, is instead trying to run interference for Met Life. Check out this article from the state government website: fer cryin’ out loud:
DOVER, DE – In a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and other federal regulators, Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart has urged them to reconsider their vote to propose that MetLife be labeled as a “systemically important financial institution” (SIFI) and therefore subject to tougher federal regulation. “Based on my experience as an insurance regulator (insert joke here), and a regulator of one of MetLife’s larger insurance subsidiaries, I do not believe that MetLife’s businesses and corporate structure create the kind of systemic risk that Dodd-Frank’s SIFI designation process was designed to address,” she said. Stewart argues explicitly against the designation of MetLife and said state regulators are capable and competent to continue the oversight of the company (insert joke here).
Last month MetLife announced that the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), led by Secretary Lew, had made a “proposed determination” that MetLife should be designated a nonbank SIFI under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Under this law, the FSOC was given the power to designate financial firms whose failure would jeopardize the financial stability of the United States and label them SIFIs. “As the MetLife group does not engage in any significant non-insurance activities, let alone activities that would create systemic risk, another layer of oversight over MetLife’s activities is redundant, unnecessary and will only serve to impede the quality of service MetLife provides to its customers and the value it delivers to its shareholders,” said Stewart.
Even if Stewart could somehow make the case that Met Life’s ‘quality of service’ would somehow be impeded by more stringent oversight, which she can’t, why is a regulator who has screwed up pretty much everything *cough* BC/BS/Highmark *cough* so danged concerned about it? That, folks, is what is known as a rhetorical question. She’s in thrall to the insurance industry that underwrites her election. She once again demonstrates that, just how Carper’s key constituency is the banks, not people, so too is KWS’ constituency the insurance companies she’s supposed to regulate, not people. Which reminds me, when, if ever, has she written a letter on behalf of insurance company consumers as opposed to insurance companies?
The press release is exceedingly well-crafted, but the fact that Stewart views this as a good thing says all you need to know about who runs the IC’s office: the insurance companies.
Read the letter in its entirety. Safe to say she’s got a job on Met Life’s payroll whenever she retires or the voters retire her.
BTW, this piece came from a tip to DL. Keep ’em coming, and thanks to the tipster.
Tags: El Somnambulo, Featured, Karen Weldin Stewart, Met Life, Steve Tanzer Delaware
It is hard to get excited about this. KWS is not exceptional. The Democrat Party (sic), as it is currently composed, is set up to help corporations avoid regulation.
Every DE politician is in the breast pocket of big business. Right there next to Mortimer Duke’s Patek Philippe pocket watch you’ll find lil’ Tommy Carper playing patty cake with Coons, KWS, Tommy-Gun Gordon, our #1 Gov Jackie M, and all the rest.
Honestly this is why the recent back and forth about Simpler and Barney and who’ll do what is so incredibly boring. Why people don’t care about “the mid-terms”… It’s all the same shit.
Agreed. And in the absence of any kind of sensible Democratic Party, the Republicans will continue to win the midterms and continue to turn everything to shit.
No need for anybody to be surprised or alarmed. It is just the way it is.
I hate to disagree with Jason and Dorian, but when you’ve lived and voted in Delaware as long as I have, you get better at distinguishing among the various grades of bullshit. It’s like gasoline — any grade will make the machine run, but the low-grade thievery smells worse.
It is a sorry state of affairs. Our rating scale for elected Dems seems to run from 1 (terrible) to -5 (horrible).
She is the referee who has removed her striped shirt and is now wearing the jersey of Metlife. There is no role for her to “intercede” with the feds on behalf of Metlife. I’m kind of stunned Metlife would ask her to do this….it is so inappropriate ….somebody at Metlife might be looking for a job. If you have the insurance Commissioner in your hip pocket, you don’t “out it” to the public, because in a normal world folks would then demand a new ref.
Hate to post twice, but you might want to change the headline, The MEGA life insurance company may take issue with your post seeing that they have nothing to do with this situation. Mega is the largest insurer of college and university health plans, and is a “mega” company themselves.
If you have the insurance Commissioner in your hip pocket, you don’t “out it” to the public, because in a normal world folks would then demand a new ref.
Obviously a lot of people haven’t been paying attention. KWS has been in the hip pocket of insurance companies since the first day she came into office, and there are no consequences for her to wearing it on her sleeve. She intentionally brought Highmark to DE to be a private insurance monopoly and negotiated a sweetheart $175 million kickback for them. When her own party refused to re-nominate her for a second term, she made a deal with the city Dems and got re-elected anyway.
Nobody in the current legislature–Democrat or Republican–has shown an ounce of serious willingness to take on insurance companies in Delaware.
@UC:
Re: If you have the insurance Commissioner in your hip pocket, you don’t “out it” to the public, because in a normal world folks would then demand a new ref.
Don’t worry about the fairness aspect of it. If any other insurance company asked KWS to write a letter to the feds on their behalf, I’m sure she would do the same.
No favoritism in this office.
lol
Shoulda known there was an insurance company called ‘Mega’.
Reminds me of the huge corporation on “Rocko’s Modern Life”:
“Welcome to Conglomo. We own you.”
More on that underappreciated show here:
http://www.tv.com/shows/rockos-modern-life/
“Which reminds me, when, if ever, has she written a letter on behalf of insurance company consumers as opposed to insurance companies?”
She’s incapable of writing ANY letters or even have a conversation without a script, but everything that goes on at the DOI is ultimately her responsibility even though she’s mostly out shopping or getting her hair and nails done or doing personal travel on state time and at state expense. She makes all the other corruptocrats look like pikers. Why is she still in office? Because all the evidence of her bottomless thievery and greed was ignored since all the people who could do something about it but instead profit from it, have no interest in killing their cash cow.
The DOI merit staff is well aware that John Tinsley is the major operator behind the scenes and Gene Reed is his tool. Their latest grand scheme to take down and rob Indemnity Insurance went off without a hitch, including getting its owner out of their way with false accusations. Remember how she accused Reed of “assaulting” her in 2008 and claimed Mitch Crane “assaulted” her in 2012? Well, that bogus routine worked again and the payoff for that cabal was tremendous. And just imagine, if anyone had listened in 2008, none of this would be happening.
@El Som:
Whoever hires KWS on the basis of that letter after she’s finally out of office will kick themselves unless they do it to say they’ve got a former insurance commissioner on board. If they expect anything more than that like work or brains, they’re in for a rude awakening. I doubt she’ll go for such an offer in any case because whatever she gets paid will be chump change compared to what she’ll have stolen from Delawareans in her 8 years as IC (the only real job she’s ever had, by the way).
You’re right. My point is that a no-show sinecure is a small price to pay for the interference she’s run for the big insurers.
@El Som
True, but she’s lazy and has never worked, including the past 6+ years. She’s not about to start when she can retire to her McMansion in Florida and play the society matron instead.
El Som:
A tip?? It’s a frickin’ press release.
Well, it’s a press release we didn’t read until we got a heads-up. Wonder whether the ‘paper of record’ will pick up on it…so far, it’s not on their online edition.
Don’t hold your breath, El Som. They’ve been in the bag for her from day one.
BTW, saw nothing in the ‘newspaper of record’.
Interesting, b/c, for once, KWS and I agree that this is newsworthy, but for totally opposite reasons.
I think that when the Insurance Commissioner goes to bat for a big insurer and argues for LESS regulation, it’s news. Granted, it’s not the first letter that demonstrates who she really represents. Or have we forgotten her entreaty to the Feds that companies like Aetna should not have to spend at least 85 cents of every health insurance dollar on, you know, health services? I haven’t.
I wish the Markell administration showed some interest in getting her out of office. If it had given her the Flowers treatment, she’d be wearing an orange jumpsuit by now.
@geezer: you’d be amazed at how much behind-the-scenes legislator support KWS actually has; I found that out last year when I tried to pursue an issue against Highmark for the local owner of an independent urgent care. It took her office months to reply to the complaint, but in the interim we received unsolicited communications from 5-6 key legislators telling us not to worry because the Insurance Commissioner was committed to a full and fair review of all such issues, and they were positive that if there was any merit to the case that she’d be on top of it. The only way these folks could even have known about the complaint was through her or Highmark.
@Geezer:
Good to see you’re finally convinced about that criminal IC. Up til now you were always what you liked to think of as “the voice of reason”. I guess 6+ years of “reason” was enough.
@Steve Newton:
Interesting. Were you ever able to resolve your case?
These same “key legislators” are precisely the reason why she’s still in office. No doubt she keeps palms greased at every level. She can certainly afford it after the many millions she and Tinsley and Reed stole from Indemnity.
Mule: You’ve got the wrong Geezer. Don’t think that Geezer has ever said anything remotely supportive of KWS. Quite the contrary.
@geezer: No. It didn’t get resolved because the Insurance Commissioner refused to examine the evidence, and the local owner is now out of business and working for a national chain. So I guess it did get resolved: Highmark steamed on.
Highmark’s one of the reasons I decided to run for office.
Steve wrote an excellent opinion piece in the “Paper of Record” a few weeks back. Maybe someone more tech-savvy than I am can post a link?
KWS needs to disappear from the DE political scene. She’s nothing more than a grifter who learned how to milk the awful political scene in our little state.
@Rufus
Here’s the link to the copy on my blog (the WNJ link is difficult to access):
http://newtonfor22ndstaterep.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-editorial-about-highmark-that-you.html
Thanks Steve, worth a second read.
@LeBay:
KWS got introduced to the money to be had in the DOI by her then-boyfriend Dave Levinson, IC at the time (1989). Had they not met, this would never have happened. Of course she has no more idea about insurance now than she did in 1989. In a better world, she’d be stocking shelves at Walmart instead.
@Steve Newton:
Excellent article. Before the Highmark/BCBS merger she got one of her largest bribes, which was nothing compared to her haul from the wrongful confiscation and liquidation of Indemnity Insurance. She may have done the same thing to some other companies, but I guess we’ll never know. I’m just amazed someone could do all this and totally get away with it. She and Tinsley and Reed should be in prison, along with some of her other enablers.
She’ll be almost 70 years old by the time her second term ends. With her multi-million dollar yield from her two terms as IC that elevated her from near-bankruptcy in 2008, it seems she’d get the hell out of Dodge before someone has the good sense to nail her. But her kind of greed is never satisfied.
“Good to see you’re finally convinced about that criminal IC. Up til now you were always what you liked to think of as “the voice of reason”. I guess 6+ years of “reason” was enough.”
No, I’ve always been convinced. What I have continually pointed out is that you don’t have any EVIDENCE. What I have called for is evidence. We don’t have a paper trail that will get her convicted. We can rant all we want, but until someone becomes a turncoat, I don’t think we can get her out of office. You again have said she accepted bribes. Where’s the EVIDENCE?
The administration has plenty of weapons it could use to root out that paper trail. Its failure to do so shows that whatever else his talents may be, Jack Markell isn’t the best at multi-tasking.
The evidence was given to the AG’s office, the offices of Denn and Markell, the Capitol Police, and the FBI, all of whom never responded. It was also provided to WDEL. One of them did say they were “instructed” to stop their investigation. Nuff said. She’s well connected alright.
If you’re referring to the case in which someone is now imprisoned, nuff said indeed.
KWS will become CEO of Hair Club for Women.
@Pelt:
Funny, but even that gig is an overreach for her, a narcissist high school dropout with a room temperature IQ and no skills. She actually said at her first swearing-in that her election was a “from rags to riches” story. True, but she obviously wasn’t talking about her $110K a year pay check.