Presiding Officer: "Okey... can you comment on whether there's a
difference between the contractual dividends that policyholders will
receive under the Closed Block and the dividends that policyholders have
received as members of a mutual company?"
Chairman Brown: "Well, this one I'm going to leave mostly to the
actuaries, but I can tell you that my understanding is that the
dividends that are protected by the Closed Block are related to the 1999
dividend scale."
Commissioner Ruthardt: Mr. Brown, which actuaries, since you are one?
Chairman Brown: "Well, I'm a former actuary, Commissioner, and I
have
not been a practicing actuary for a long period of time."
In short, Chairman Brown did not answer the question, and, more startling, suggested he
was not qualified to answer it by deferring it to his hired consulting actuary. This
despite the fact that he has run the company for over a decade and the question goes to
the heart of what policyholders' rights are before and after the demutualization. Clearly,
the Chairman of Hancock did not assit the company in meeting its legal burden to establish
that the rights of policyholders would not be adversely affected by the transaction.
(Neither did has actuary in our view. More on that later.)