California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones on Wednesday singled out eight insurers licensed to do business in the state who continue to have investments tied to Iran’s energy, military and nuclear sectors.
During a press conference in Los Angeles Jones called out the insurers for not divesting their holdings in multinational companies doing business in Iran under the Department of Insurance’s Iran Divestment Program launched in 2009 by then Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.
In tying the insurers, all but one of which are life insurance companies, to Iranian investments, Jones noted that the nation itself has been tied with terrorism and he referred to Iran’s efforts to become a nuclear nation.
Around the same time that Jones was making his remarks it was being reported that Iran had started installing a new generation of machines for enriching uranium, a move countries like the U.S. fear is an effort to speed up Iran’s alleged efforts to create a nuclear weapon despite Iran’s stated intent that its goal is to generate nuclear power and not weapons of mass destruction.
Jones stood with several members of Los Angeles’ Jewish community when he made the announcement, and he also used the occasion to praise the program’s results over the last four years.
From the roughly 1,300 insurers doing business in California the total amount of investments in companies doing business in the Iranian military, energy and nuclear sectors was roughly $6 billion at the beginning of the program. Currently insurer investments in companies doing business with the Iranian energy, military, and nuclear sectors total just under $200 million, a 97 percent reduction, according to Jones.
And the list of insurers declining to divest has been reduced to eight.
Those eight insurance companies are: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., Connecticut General Life Insurance Co., ING USA Annuity and Life Insurance Co., The Ohio National Life Insurance Co., Ohio National Life Assurance Corp., Life Insurance Company of North America, National Guardian Life Insurance Co., Assurity Life Insurance Co.
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