MET LIFE AGREES TO RESTITUTION

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. agreement to pay up to $76 million in restitution to about 60,000 customers nationally includes some settlements in Southeast Missouri, a spokesman of the Missouri Department of Insurance said Tuesday.

Metro Life Insurance Co. has also agreed to pay $20 million in fines to settle charges with state insurance regulators that it deceived thousands of customers.

The insurance company reached the restitution agreement with members of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners during a meeting at Dallas last weekend, company spokesman Charles Sahner said.

The settlement has been endorsed by insurance commissioners of 24 states so far, including Missouri.

"We support the settlements," said Randy McConnell, a spokesman from the public affairs office of the Missouri Department of Insurance. "Although the means of distribution is unclear at this time, we have 688 policyholders in Missouri who may receive settlements."

McConnell said more than $250,000 would be distributed in Missouri.

"Some of the policyholders requesting settlements are in Southeast Missouri, including Cape Girardeau," said McConnell.

"This does not mean that a Southeast Missouri salesman misrepresented a policy," stressed McConnell. "In some cases, policyholders may have misunderstood, and in other cases no settlements may be awarded."

The regulators charge that the New York-based Met Life, the nation's largest life insurer, took no action as some of its agents misled thousands of customers into buying nonrefundable policies.

The Met Life agents were accused of misrepresenting life insurance plans for retirement, the commissioners said Sunday at a meeting in Denver. Retirement plans are fully refundable; life insurance policies are not.

Sahner said the company expects the $76 million will be the maximum it will pay based on its experience with settling claims from disgruntled customers so far. The company had proposed the $76 million figure previously.

Jill Chamberlin, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Insurance in Tallahassee, told the Associated Press the numbers could go higher if more policyholders surface and prove they were defrauded by the insurance company.

The Florida Insurance Commissioner -- Tom Gallagher -- has played a major role in the case since one of the first cases of improper sales activities was discovered in Met Life's Tampa, Fla., office. Several executives at that office were eventually fired.

The fine was endorsed Sunday by a group of state insurance commissioners at their meeting in Denver.

Met Life is supposed to contact the affected customers soon to inform them of the restitution program, she said. If customers are not contacted within several weeks, she said, they should contact their state insurance commissioner for details.