Annuity Fraud Attorney

Nonprofit Sues Harbour Investments Over CB Life Annuity Losses For Up to $1,000,000 

Our Colorado Bankers Life Insurance Annuity Fraud Attorneys Are Representing This Institutional Investor

In its Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) lawsuit, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization is pursuing damages from brokerage firm Harbour Investments over losses it sustained in Colorado Bankers Life Insurance. The claimant, an institutional investor, had a longstanding relationship with now-former Indiana financial advisor Gerald Lencke, whom it had appointed as its attorney-in-fact.

It was Lencke when he was a Harbour Investments broker, who allegedly unsuitably recommended that the nonprofit invest $1.3M in a Colorado Bankers Life Insurance annuity. He also purportedly failed to tell this institutional investor that Colorado Bankers had since evolved in nature, including that owner Greg Lindberg had struck a deal with the then-North Carolina Insurance Commission to invest up to 40% of the assets of Colorado Bankers Life Insurance and Bankers Life Insurance into his other affiliated entities in exchange for moving both insurers to the state. This allegedly caused $1.2B that was being held for Colorado Bankers Life Insurance policyholders to be placed into non-insurance companies that Lindberg ran or owned.

When, in November 2016, a new state Insurance Commission was appointed, the amount of assets that Bankers Life Insurance and Colorado Bankers Life Insurance were allowed to invest in the affiliates was lowered to 10%. Because of this, Colorado Bankers was supposed to unwind hundreds of millions of dollars in these transactions so it could comply. Unfortunately, Lindberg was not able or willing to fulfill this new requirement. In 2018, Colorado Bankers Life Insurance was put into administrative supervision and then in 2019, it went into rehabilitation.

As a result, thousands of investors, including many retail investors, seniors, and institutional investors like this nonprofit, have been unable to access their funds for years. This has led to significant financial losses.

Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas Annuity Fraud Attorney team (investorlawyers.com) are representing many of these CB Life annuity holders by helping them go after the broker-dealers and investment advisers that marketed and sold them annuities in Colorado Bankers Life Insurance, Bankers Life Insurance, and other Lindberg-owned insurers. As institutional investor fraud attorney Kirk Smith noted in the Wall Street Journal, suing their brokers may be your best chance for financial recovery.

Broker-dealers knew for some time that Lindberg was long suspected of funneling funds from his insurers to his special-purpose vehicles. Proper due diligence might have prevented thousands of investors from suffering serious losses in Colorado Bankers Life Insurance.

So might have proper supervision of financial advisors by brokerage firms, which have to make sure that their clients are not the victims of unsuitable investment recommendations, misrepresentations and omissions, concentration, best interest violations, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, brokered fraud, and more. Meanwhile, Lindberg, who has already served time in prison for wire fraud, is awaiting a retrial on those criminal charges. He is also now accused of defrauding annuity policyholders in an alleged $2B scheme.

In December 2022, Colorado Bankers was placed into liquidation after the North Carolina Department of Insurance found that the insurer owned far below the level of required assets, which made it insolvent. Specifically, the state’s regulator found that Colorado Bankers Life Insurance had about $1.37 billion in assets and liabilities of more than $2.5 billion. It also owed policyholders more than $1 billion.

Why Hire Our Skilled CB LifeAnnuity Fraud Attorney If You Are An Institutional Investor?

Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas are representing over 100 investors against broker-dealers in recouping the losses they suffered from investing in Lindberg-issued annuities from multiple insurers. Should we agree to work together, you will become part of our unit of CB Life annuity loss claims and your lawsuit will be able to avail of all of the discovery that we’ve conducted to date. Not only that, but you will have all of our savvy annuity fraud attorneys, and legal assistants fighting for you.

More than 90% of investors have received full partial financial recovery with our help. We also have decades of experience representing institutional investors.

How To Contact an Annuity Fraud Attorney at SSEK:

Call (800) 259-9010 today.