*Formatting of these documents may vary from those filed with the Division of Insurance due to the conversion process to make them available through the web.

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

DIVISION OF INSURANCE

_______________________
Plan of Reorganization of    )
John Hancock Mutual Life )                                                                                       Docket No. F99-04
Insurance Company             )
_______________________)

Loretta M. Harhen, Aaron E. Landy, Jr. and the John S. Katzman Family Trust (the "Named Policyholders") submit this supplemental post-hearing statement in response to the late-filed Motion to Supplement Record filed this evening by John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company ("Hancock") regarding efforts to locate Hancock’s nearly 400,000 lost policyholders. We note as an initial matter that these efforts come a mere six days before the November 30, 1999 Special Meeting for policyholders to vote on Hancock’s Proposed Plan of Demutualization, and that those six days include Thanksgiving, the most traveled of national holidays, with four non-business days.

Hancock has testified before the Division of Insurance that it has "taken significant steps to locate policyholders." Testimony of CEO Stephen Brown, Trans. November 17, 1999 at 116. However, Hancock now states that, for the first time, the following databases of public records will be searched for Hancock’s missing policyholders:

• the Census Bureau
• Voter Registration
• National Change of Address
• Division of Motor Vehicle Records
• Unreported Deaths
• Social Security Administration’s Master Death File.

Hancock states that the search of these databases will be complete in early December, 1999. Although Hancock purportedly "undertook an extensive program to try to obtain current addresses for policyholders for whom there was not a valid, mailable address on John Hancock’s records" beginning sometime in 1998 (see JHX 8), clearly, no such program can be characterized as "extensive" that failed to arrange for the most basic and intuitive searches of public records until one week before the policyholder vote on November 30, 1999 and after the public hearings. Hancock’s latest filing is nothing less than an admission that it has not performed a thorough search process to date.¹ It has further demonstrated that Hancock has not taken this issue seriously enough until now.

In its latest filing, Hancock also provides a list of 22 major newspapers in which it intends to run ads at least ¼ page in size to look for the missing policyholders. Although Hancock was aware of the problem of its 400,000 lost policyholders well before it mailed out the Policyholder Information Statement to "approximately 2 ½ million policyholders" beginning September 19, 1999 (see Hancock’s Opening Statement by Stephen Brown, Trans. November 17, 1999 at 16), these newspapers were not originally used to disseminate the general notice of the hearing on the Proposed Plan of Demutualization. (See JHX 7, listing only six newspapers.) Yet, Hancock has a substantial distribution of millions of policyholders throughout the United States (see Participants’ Exhibit 9), and knew it had a significant number of policyholders it "lost" in over half the states across the country (see Participants’ Additional Exhibit 23).²

Hancock demonstrates with these actions that thorough, more competent searches and advertisements for missing policyholders could and should have been embarked on long ago. In supplement to our prior evidence and argument contained in our final brief (Named Policyholders’ Proposed Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order), we urge the Division of Insurance to find that Hancock has not met its burden of demonstrating that its Plan complies with the requirements of M.G.L. c. 175, § 19E. Specifically, we request that the Division of Insurance not recognize Hancock’s policyholder vote on the Plan on November 30, 1999 because the vote is invalid. At minimum, Hancock must be ordered (if it wants a policyholder vote to be considered) to extend the right of all policyholders right to vote, including the policyholders Hancock lost, with ample information and time to cast their vote. The other actions sought by Participants in their final brief on this issue should also be granted for the reasons stated therein at paras. 2-7 and 8-13.

If necessary, please consider this document a motion to file a supplemental statement as well as the statement itself.

1. Any preliminary approval by the Commissioner of "guidelines" for locating addresses of lost policyholders (see JHX 9) does not preclude the Commissioner from finally adjudicating whether there was "reasonable notice and procedure" sufficient to meet the standard of review under Section 19E(2) following the receipt of evidence in the public hearings and thereafter.
2. Had Hancock sent annual ballots to its policyholders it would not now be in the predicament.