Manufacturers and distributors need to communicate more to root out unsuitable sales.
Speakers delivered that message here during a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Council of Life Insurers, Washington.
Although insurers can hire third parties to ensure that sales of products are suitable, they should be able to show any regulators who appear that the policing is actually being done, said John Doscher, vice president of compliance at Prudential Financial Inc., Newark, N.J.
When the regulators come by asking about policing, "you don't want them to see that you pushed it off onto the broker-dealers," Doscher said.
Doscher said insurers should recognize that any potential problem patterns they see at a distributor may be the result of the fact that the distributor offers products from many different carriers.