The National Rifle Association (NRA) has been ordered to pay $2.5 million for “violating” the New York insurance law by “soliciting dangerous and impermissible insurance products,” state financial regulators announced on Wednesday. The association is also banned from marketing any insurance in the state for five years, according to a report by The Associated Press.
The New York State Department of Financial Services consent order follows a lengthy and highly publicized three-year investigation into the gun advocacy group, in which financial regulators found the NRA to was violating NY insurance laws and regulations by acting as an insurance producer without a license and trying to market insurance products, such as the NRA’s Carry Guard program.
NRA’s controversial Carry Guard insurance program was developed and administered in partnership with insurance broker, Lockton Companies. As explained by The Associated Press, gun advocates have labeled the product as “murder insurance” after the NRA promoted the product as essential coverage to help with civil and criminal legal costs in the case that policyholders shot someone in self-defense.
New York State Department of Financial Services Linda Lacewell alluded to this in a statement about the consent order. She said: “The NRA violated the New York insurance law by soliciting dangerous and impermissible insurance products, including those within its Carry Guard program that purported to insure intentional acts and criminal defense costs.”
The NRA worked with Lockton to offer insurance products to NRA members, their families and affiliated businesses in New York between 2000 and 2018, receiving “substantial” compensation and royalties based on insurance premiums, according to The Associated Press report. In that 18-year period, more than 28,000 NRA-endorsed policies were placed in New York through Lockton.
But the NRA was not licensed to solicit or market insurance in New York, according to state financial regulators, hence the five-year marketing ban and $2.5 million settlement fee.
The NRA is yet to release a comment.
