Startling news from several former Employees of the well-known insurance company, Aflac, which is based in Columbus, Ga., revealed that deception and exploitation of its workers influenced its accounting results, permeating all corners of the company, according to Lawsuits that were filed. The lawsuits and allegations also shed light on the fact that the company was deceptive to both consumers and company shareholders. The allegations were based on talks with several employees, the Intercept reported on Thursday.
Lawsuits against Aflac
The allegations were found in lawsuits filed against Aflac and involved every level of their business practices that led to a number of investigations by both federal and state regulatory agencies, the Intercept found.
For over a year, Aflac’s senior management and their board of directors knew of the court-case claims but failed to notify those who held Aflac shares and failed to file public statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. They only made generalized statements and did not think it would hurt Aflac’s bottom line.
Aflac is a Fortune 500 company and for the past eleven years, has been identified as one of the world’s most honorable companies. Louis Varela, who worked as a sales associate with Aflac for three years in New York City, stated that what Aflac is doing is completely unjust. After being given a list of questions, the spokesman for Aflac responded that they would not comment on the lawsuits that are pending.
Former employees' accusations
Some of the accusations within the lawsuits include enrolling thousands of new employees and promising them that they would make over $100,000 or more within the first year but less than two-percent of the new hires actually made that type of income. In another accusation, employees were encouraged to sell Aflac policies to family and friends and then attempt to recruit them (multi-level marketing scheme) into the company.
Then, there was commission theft where the employees' earned commissions didn’t go to them but to the managers instead.
Moreover, there was a case of sexual harassment, and whistleblowers were retaliated against while the company manipulated company earning statements, according to the lawsuits. Furthermore, statements by former employees were made in which employees were pressured to meet “company goals” by offering and selling policies that were not only “illegal," but without customer consent, or other such policies to consumers who were clearly “ineligible." They also massaged Aflac's strategic metrics to show that the company was growing to investors when possibly the company was not.
Back in November 2016, former employees presented Aflac with a nearly 100 page draft of their lawsuit, with the hope that the issue(s) could be settled out of court. Soon after, the company filed for an interim restraining order in two states, in Georgia and in New York, to halt the petitioners from filing the class-action lawsuit as Aflac stated that there was a forced arbitration stipulation in all employee contracts with the company. By doing so, Aflac’s attempt to push the lawsuit into arbitration in the state of Georgia resulted in the company inadvertently exposing the actions and the lawsuits.
