While the school district’s advisory committee asked that the insurer begin listing all the annuity expenses on the front page of investors’ account statements, the company instead listed fees near the end of the statements for some school district investors in the first quarter of 2020.
“With respect to all other investors, including hundreds of thousands of K-12 teachers and administrators employed by hundreds of other school districts located across the nation, Equitable made no changes to the EQUI-VEST account statements that those investors received and instead continued providing them with account statements that reported fees and expenses in the same manner that Equitable had been employing since at least 2016,” the SEC reported.
Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, Equitable agreed to cease and desist from committing or causing any future violations of these provisions and to pay a $50 million civil penalty that it will distribute to affected investors, the SEC said.
“Equitable also agreed to revise how it presents fee information in its variable annuity account statements,” the SEC said in a statement.
Equitable Financial did not respond to a request for comment by press time.