The Insurance Scam in the Heart of America: Ruin and Debt

[PeterRS]

We have in another thread a lot of information about the scam centres located mostly in Myanmar. These trafficked up to 250,000 mostly from around Asia to work in mostly dreadful conditions persuading generally those from older generations around the world to part with their hard earned cash. Thankfully China has started to do something about this. With the help of the Thai authorities, one of the biggest scam chiefs, a Chinese national named She Zhijiang, has finally been sent back to Beijing.

Today's Guardian newspaper highlights another form of scam, one operating in Amerca's heartland. Northwestern Mutual is one of America's most admired companies. Founded 168 years ago it sits at #109 in the Fortune 500 list. It also tops Forbes list of the best employers for university graduates. Internships which might lead to full time jobs are coveted by students. Posters at recruitment seninars tourinely tout the company as "The Career You Want at a Company You’ll Love." Although given the revelations in The Guardian article, I totally fail to understand why.

Jeremy Barr, a senior at Texas A&M University, was attracted by the company's PR. He was chosen for an internship. Jeremy was offered a job in the company's Texas office. 

He was sent away with “market information surveys” to complete. The worksheets, seen by the Guardian, required Jeremy to interview 10 friends or family members about their finances – listing their names, occupations, phone numbers, and asking each of them to refer him to 10 more people he could contact about their financial planning . . .

He was chosen for an internship. Jeremy was offered a job in the company's Texas office. In spite of its questionable practices, the insurance industry is doing all it can to prevent government interference. SInce 1998 it has spent $4 billion in lobbying fees.

The training began immediately, but there were no crash courses in mutual funds or market trends. Instead, the new recruits were told to take out their phones, open their contacts, and upload at least 200 names into company software.

Then start calling.

The goal: 40 dials a day, documents seen by the Guardian show. Friends, cousins, ex-roommates, teammates, anyone who might answer. Jeremy was told to leave 20 missed calls at a time so it looked “urgent”. When someone finally picked up, there was a script to follow: a cheerful announcement of his new role, followed by an invitation to meet and discuss their financial future.

If the person on the phone agrees to meet, their financials are input into Northwestern’s software, which spits out a financial plan. Invariably, it will recommend the most expensive life insurance product, known as “whole life”, according to internal documents and interviews with workers. A more senior adviser typically joins the call and gets half the commission. Reps have quotas for these meetings, according to 14 sources, and an internal document from the New York office, that requests five new bookings per week.

According to the author, 21 current and former Northwestern workers all had the same stories. Recruitment, they said, is a decoy for harvesting contacts. Reps are not being groomed as future financial advisers, they claim, but pushed to sell life insurance to friends and family. After one month 80% of interns dropped out. Jeremy stayed on and became top of his group. But despite being the product Northwestern encourages all its employees to concentrate on,  whole life policies make tons of profit. Many cash out within a few years when they realise they cannot afford the premiums. Those lost premiums are basically profit. Basically, though they are just a lousy investment. 

An investment in the S&P 500 in 1990 will have grown about 3,700% while a Northwestern policy would have yielded just 44% over the same period (based on its current dividend rate of 5.5%). So, a stock market investment will have grown about 85 times more than the cash value in a whole life policy. Inflation since 1990 is around 146% so the Northwestern investment would have lost value in real terms . . .

[Like so many others] Jeremy, once the last intern standing, eventually broke too. He had sold more than 50 policies to clients which he knew often did not serve their best interest. Guilt caught up with him. Just over a year after that hopeful spring morning, he quit.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/24/northwestern-mutual-insurance-jobs-hiring

 

[jimmie50]

I cannot speak specifically about Northwestern, but I know from a friend who worked for a different company that this is pretty standard operating procedure.  Scams come disguised in many ways, and all of us have probably fallen for at least one during our lifetime.  Companies take advantage of everyone...interns and employees, potential customers...They certainly wouldn't find 200 contacts on my phone.  Just checked and currently there are 61 in my contact list.  Most of those are family or friends all around my age who do exactly what I do...never answer the phone.  If it is important, they will leave a voice mail, send me a text, or send me an email asking me to call.  Never return sales calls...ever.