MetLife to Pay $10 Million for Longstanding Internal Control Failures

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged MetLife, Inc. with violating the books and records and internal accounting controls provisions of the federal securities laws relating to two errors in its accounting for reserves associated with its annuities businesses. MetLife has agreed to pay $10 million to settle the charges. According to the SEC’s order, MetLife improperly released reserves for annuity benefits associated with MetLife’s Retirement and Income Solutions Business, which resulted in an increase in income. For over 25 years, MetLife’s practice was to presume annuitants had died or otherwise would never be found if they did not respond to only two mailing attempts made approximately five and half years apart. MetLife later determined that its processes for locating and contacting unresponsive annuitants were insufficient to justify the release of reserves.