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Do Insurers Have a Fiduciary Duty?

New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, spoke to the National Press Club in February, discussing the recent business scandals on which he has launched a crusade.

By Ken Brownlee | Updated on August 10, 2005

New York’s attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, spoke to the National Press Club in February, discussing the recent business scandals on which he has launched a crusade. He cited the businesses in question for serious “breaches of fiduciary duty,” including the insurance industry and the brokerage firms that he has tackled. At his dinner table one evening, he told the audience, he asked his 15-year-old daughter what her favorite word was. She gave him that typical teenager look and responded that she did not have one, but she sure knew what his were: fiduciary duty.

Spitzer’s attack on the insurance industry has been headline news. Scanning recent National Underwriters reveals stories such as: “Conn. Sues Marsh, ACE” (Jan. 31), “Spitzer Eyes Personal Lines” (Jan. 24), “Agents on the Defensive” (Jan. 3), and Sam Friedman’s Jan. 10 editorial, “Is Spitzer Unethical?” (Well, maybe, maybe not. Yes, he was buddy-buddy with the new guy at Marsh. As Friedman said, however, “Spitzer has done a lot of good in exposing wrongdoing in the financial services industry but, like any politician, he is a media hound.”)

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