Lindberg insurance companies to be liquidated, NC court rules

Posted by Admin November 22, 2022 Tech

RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina judge approved a request from state regulators to liquidate a pair of insurance companies linked to Greg Lindberg, a North Carolina businessman accused of funneling cash his insurance companies needed to pay out annuities and other benefits into a host of other companies he owned.

The decision comes more than three years after the state started questioning the whereabouts of more than $1 billion in insurance company assets within Lindberg’s empire.

Lindberg is the founder of Global Growth, a Durham-based firm with a complex network of insurance companies.

In Wake County Superior Court on Monday, a judge ruled that two of Global Growth’s North Carolina-based insurance companies, Colorado Bankers Life Insurance Company and Bankers Life Insurance Company, would go into liquidation, thereby giving several policyholders an avenue to more quickly get some of their money back.

In 2019, the North Carolina Department of Insurance put several insurance companies Lindberg had acquired into “rehabilitation” amid concerns over liquidity and ability to meet obligations to policyholders. The department this year requested that the court liquidate the two North Carolina-based insurance companies.

“This is an important step that will allow more policyholders to get more of their money back, sooner,” North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey said in a statement.

Global Growth didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Payments are to be covered by the state guaranty associations, which back the insurance annuities largely at issue, much like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. guarantees bank accounts. The guaranty limit in North Carolina is $300,000.

Causey’s office is still waiting on a signed decision from the judge but was informed of the decision on Monday, according to Barry Smith, a spokesman for the state insurance commissioner.

Through a spokeswoman, Lindberg had previously criticized the state insurance department’s liquidation petition, saying a buyer was prepared to purchase the insurance companies, which would give policyholders their money “in a matter of months.”

In 2020, Lindberg was convicted of bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison. The conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court in June, saying the judge who tried the case had given bad instructions to the jury on a critical element of the case.

In May, Wake County Superior Court Judge Graham Shirley, said Lindberg defrauded his own insurance companies to get a $40 million loan before unraveling a carefully negotiated agreement meant to unwind a $1 billion investment scheme.