Readers Show No Mercy
Readers often e-mail me about my column sometimes full of praise, occasionally full of rage, and once in awhile full of something else that will remain unidentified. The following are excerpts from two of the more deserved tongue-lashings I've received recently.
One agent who preferred anonymity took issue with the last paragraph of my Feb. 28 editorial "What's Next For Spitzer?" finding it "a bit troubling" that I had wondered: "How many more people are going to be taken down and how many more companies are going to pay through the nose before New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer turns his attention elsewhere?"
"It seems to me that all of the people so far who have been 'taken down' will eventually receive exactly what they deserve for lying and cheating their customers out of money the perpetrators were never entitled to in the first place. The same goes for the 'companies paying through the nose.'
"These 'taken-down' executives and companies have literally stolen money from their policyholders, no matter how you look at it," the agent wrote. "They deserve to not only lose their jobs, pay large fines and go to jail, but they should also repay every dollar in excess costs their policyholders paid out because of their nefarious deeds."
The individuals and companies caught so far, "that you seem to have some degree of pity for," he added, "have not only stolen from their own clients, they have stolen the good reputation of virtually all of the rest of us in this industry who have labored a lifetime to try to prove day in and day out to our clients that the public's perception of our industry as being little better thanused car salesmen is not really justified. Apparently the public wasn't too far off the mark in their view of the insurance industry after all!"
Actually, I have no pity for those who have been caught cheating clients. I was actually shocked about how blatantly dishonest some of these scoundrels were as well as how audacious (or was it careless and stupid?) they were in conducting their scams via e-mail, leaving smoking guns for Mr. Spitzer to find and shoot them with.
Meanwhile, the president of a management recruiting firm e-mailed to say that my Feb. 7 comment that Marsh had "gotten off easy" in its settlement with Mr. Spitzer was in fact "an understatement."
He pointed out that "since the $850 million [financial settlement] is a payback versus a fine or penaltyit is likely Marsh can use [it] as a tax deduction," thus reducing its tax load and easing the burden of the settlement considerably. Plus, "it also appears that the payback will be spread over four years, which will provide additional financial advantages," he wrote.
Meanwhile, he added, "the largest looming financial advantage seems to be in the Marsh reorganization process, where some 3,000 employees were terminated in December [with another 2,500 set to be let go this year]," thus saving Marsh hundreds of millions in reduced salary and benefits.
"In fact," he concluded, "it would appear that Marsh is in for a financial windfall."
That might be pushing it. I admit it could have gone a lot worse for Marsh Mr. Spitzer might have brought criminal charges, for example. But this certainly is no walk in the park for the world's biggest broker, which took a huge hit to its reputation. The jury figuratively speaking is still out on how well Marsh will weather this storm of its own making.
Sam Friedman
Editor-In-Chief
Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, April 8, 2005. Copyright 2005 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
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