Prudential Fights to Keep Documents Secret

After paying hundreds of millions of dollars to settle claims over its admitted deceptive sales practices, Prudential Insurance Co. of America is fighting to keep confidential dozens of documents from customers who want more payback. Dissenters to the national class-action settlement said the documents, sent anonymously to Florida insurance regulators, will probably show more wrongdoing than the nation’s largest life insurer has acknowledged. The settlement, approved in March by a federal judge, will cost Prudential at least $410 million and by some estimates up to $2 billion. As many as 8 million life insurance policyholders who cashed in their old policies for newer, more-expensive ones are eligible. At issue is a box of 65 documents, locked in an office at the Florida Insurance Department, which the state looked at before it fined Newark, N.J.-based Prudential $15 million for deceptive sales practices. Arguing that the documents are confidential and protected by attorney-client privilege, Prudential has filed lawsuits in Florida and New Jersey to keep them from lawyers for thousands of policyholders who chose not to participate in the settlement. Attorneys for the policyholders said they believe the documents show which Prudential managers knew of the deceptive sales practices and when. Prudential spokesman Bob DeFillippo declined to say what the documents contained, but noted that Florida officials had access to the documents and agreed to a settlement with the insurer anyway.