Melvin Watt: “I rise in opposition to particularly the last part of this amendment. It really is a real disservice to mutual…”

“I rise in opposition to particularly the last part of this amendment. It really is a real disservice to mutual policyholders, who are owners of the insurance company. To allow an insurance company to take the assets and convert to a stock company puts those policyholders at a real disadvantage. Now, I had some experience with this. The last case that I ever handled in the practice of law was one of these cases where a mutual company, without the authorization of the insureds, tried to do this very thing. They ended up understating the value of the assets. They were not going to give the insurance policyholders one dime until we got involved, and they ended up paying them millions of dollars. I think this is a bad idea, and we should vote against this amendment.”