A FINRA arbitration panel has ordered AXA Advisors to pay $three.2 million in damages and charges to an aged couple who oversaw a poultry farm in upstate New York. The couple claimed they have been bought unsuitable variable annuities and life insurance coverage insurance policies by their dealer Francesco Puccio, who was beneath AXA’s supervision on the time. Puccio has since been barred from the monetary providers trade.
James and Sandra Fitzpatrick claimed negligence, violation of FINRA’s suitability rule, violation of the regulator’s requirements of business honor and ideas of commerce, negligent misrepresentation and omission of fabric details, and breach of fiduciary obligation. The couple initially sought $13.2 million plus post-award curiosity.
Cambridge Funding Analysis was additionally named as a respondent within the case; Puccio was registered with the agency from January 2014 to July 2015. However the agency settled with the household, and their claims have been dismissed.
“The monetary skilled who was concerned on this matter has not been affiliated with the corporate for greater than 5 years," mentioned an AXA spokesperson. "We don't condone any actions by this particular person which have been inconsistent with our insurance policies and values. We stay dedicated to serving our shoppers.”
A spokeswoman for Cambridge didn't instantly return a request for remark.
Puccio had three liens in opposition to him, in keeping with FINRA’s BrokerCheck.
“A dealer who's struggling to pay his payments approached his department supervisor at AXA and mentioned, ‘I need to promote a really giant life insurance coverage coverage to an 80-year-old man. I need to take his previous life insurance coverage insurance policies, that are completely good, and change them into a brand new variable annuity,’” mentioned Jason Kane, companion at Peiffer Wolf Carr & Kane (PWCK), the regulation agency representing the couple. “That could be a main purple flag that ought to’ve been adopted up on immensely.”
The couple’s son, Kerry Fitzpatrick, mentioned Puccio impersonated him to hold out a mortgage scheme in order that he may to promote them one other VA coverage to cowl restitution on one other case in opposition to him. That case concerned Scottsville, N.Y.-based widow Shirley Kerwin, who claimed related abuses; Puccio was discovered responsible of stealing from her.
“This was a transparent case of elder abuse by an organization with whom my dad and mom had a decades-long relationship with,” Kerry mentioned throughout a name with journalists.
The Fitzpatrick’s attorneys imagine the case is an element of a bigger sample of dangerous conduct at AXA. In 2014, AXA was fined $20 million by New York state associated to its annuities program, the most important effective ever issued by the state in opposition to an insurance coverage firm. The agency was fined $1.9 million by the state in 2010 for failing to adequately disclose insurance coverage replacements to its prospects.
“Whereas this was the work of a monetary felon, that felon labored inside an environment at AXA that allowed him to do it,” Kane mentioned.
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