NRA agrees to pay $2.5M fine over ‘murder insurance’ program

The organization also agreed to a five-year ban from participating in the insurance business in New York state.

New York’s Department of Financial Services announced that the National Rifle Association (NRA) has agreed to a five-year ban from participating in the insurance business in New York and will pay a $2.5 million civil fine in order to settle charges that it offered insurance coverage to NRA members without a license and also concealed how it routinely kept premiums for its own benefit.

The announcement came more than three months after Attorney General Letitia James sued to dissolve the group, accusing it of widespread corruption. The agreement resolved charges related to the NRA’s long-standing relationship with insurance broker Lockton Companies, the world’s largest independent insurance brokerage, including the sale of over 28,000 insurance policies to citizens of New York, and the NRA’s receipt of more than $1.8 million of royalties and fees from Lockton.

New York State’s Insurance Superintendent, Linda Lacewell, said that the Lockton “Carry Guard” insurance program, which carried NRA branding, illegally provided coverage for criminal defense costs and the intentional use of firearms in shooting incidents. Lacewell also accused the NRA of misleadingly promising coverage at the “ lowest possible cost,” when in actuality, between 13.7% and 21.9% of the premiums paid were kept by the NRA instead of used for business purposes.

Representatives for the NRA have previously said that the NRA did not underwrite or administer insurance programs and instead relied on industry experts to market insurance products for NRA members, a model that they claim is used by “countless” affinity groups.

Lockton was fined $7 million by the New York Financial Services Department over its involvement with the Carry Guard product.

For more than two years, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and New York state regulators have been embroiled in a dispute over the NRA-endorsed “Carry Guard” insurance program that critics have dubbed as “murder insurance.” Now, the association must appear before a regulatory hearing over allegations it violated New York law in the marketing of the product, Bloomberg reported.

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NRA agrees to pay $2.5M fine over ‘murder insurance’ program