Sep. 26--Connecticut regulators, finding inappropriate or questionable sales of insurance and annuities to the elderly, have fined Bankers Life and Casualty Co. $100,000 and put two of its agents on probation and assessed them smaller fines.

The Connecticut Insurance Department also said Thursday that it has agreed to participate in a previously announced $32 million, multi-state settlement with Conseco Inc., the parent of Chicago-based Bankers Life and other companies. Connecticut will get $15,000 from the $2.3 million fine in the national pact.

The department's own agreement with Bankers Life wraps up an investigation that started in late 2006 and involved dozens of consumer complaints, largely from senior citizens or their family members.

The company has paid $212,000 restitution to two elderly Connecticut customers; one had three policies and the other had one.

"Unfair, misleading or deceptive trade practices will not be tolerated in Connecticut," Insurance Commissioner Thomas R. Sullivan said.

From July 2006 through May 2007, the company broke state laws by failing to adequately supervise and monitor the marketing activities of its sales force, the department said. Bankers Life didn't admit or deny allegations in its settlement with the state.

In addition to paying the fine, Bankers Life agreed to establish and act on a plan to properly train its sales force of agents and watch over their sales practices.

The department also fined Bankers Life agent Thomas Steven Couvares $5,000 and put him on probation for two years. Another agent, David P. Petruzzi, was fined $500 and put on one year's probation. They both work out of the company's Farmington office.

Couvares was the direct supervisor of Bruce Smedick, a Bankers Life agent whose license was revoked in June amid the department's investigation. The department cited Smedick for improper sales tactics in dealing with four elderly consumers, including a few sales of products that weren't suitable for them.

In addition to the consumers' signing applications for insurance or annuities, they were supposed to have a friend, family member or trusted financial adviser sign, too. But the Insurance Department says it found seven applications in which Smedick's Bankers Life colleagues signed instead.

Couvares, for instance, signed two applications for Smedick customers who were buying single-premium annuities, the department said. When questioned, Couvares acknowledged he had signed one application but didn't disclose the other -- which the department says it found out about later.

Also, Couvares hadn't disclosed on his application for an agent's license, as he should have, that he'd had a bankruptcy, the department says.

The state agency believes Petruzzi, who signed one application for a Smedick customer buying a whole life policy, played a lesser role than Couvares.

The $100,000 fine against Bankers Life isn't one of the department's largest ones. In explaining why, Commissioner Sullivan said in an interview, "While violations of insurance law have been and will always be of the utmost concern for me, I'm also a believer in making sure the company has an opportunity to get it right, and remains a viable contributor to the marketplace."

Contact Diane Levick at dlevick@courant.com.

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