The Texas Department of Insurance is searching for 33,000 Texans, each of whom has a $209.50 check coming as his or her piece of a small insurance company that failed in 1992. According to TDI about $7 million will be returned to policyholders.
People who held policies of Members Mutual Insurance Co. of Farmers Branch on or after Jan. 1, 1991, and have not received their checks should call TDI at (800) 578-4677. Callers will be asked to verify their identities to make sure they are Members Mutual customers entitled to one of the unclaimed checks. The company’s special deputy receiver (SDR) initially mailed checks early in 2002. Members Mutual specialized in providing insurance for credit union members. A state district court judge in Austin placed the company in receivership in September 1992.
As a mutual insurance company, Members Mutual had no stockholders but was owned by its policyholders. After all of the defunct company’s claims and debts were paid, $13.8 million in company assets remained for distribution to the policyholder/owners. This is the biggest distribution on record from a Texas receivership of an insolvent mutual insurance company.
The SDR cut and mailed checks last year to 66,000 people whose names and addresses were in Members Mutual’s policyholder records. But about half of the checks were returned by the postal service because of addresses that no longer were valid. TDI has used Internet searches and other means to locate the owners of the checks that the postal service returned to the SDR.
“It’s a rarity for a failed insurance company to have money that can be returned to its customers,” said Commissioner Jose Montemayor. “A $200 check will buy a lot of groceries, and we hope that the Members Mutual policyholders who have not gotten theirs will call and tell us where they are.”
Persons with questions about the distribution should contact TDI´s Liquidation Oversight Division at (800) 578-4677, extension 3-6450, for Jean Sustaita or extension 5-8152 for Bill Carter. Or write to: Texas Department of Insurance, Liquidation Oversight, Mail Code 305-1D, P. O. Box 149104, Austin, Texas 78714-9104.
Topics Texas
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