Elizabeth D. Festa

About the Author

Elizabeth D. Festa

Elizabeth Festa, Regulatory & Compliance News Editor for LifeHealthPro.com, is a longtime financial and regulatory affairs journalist with a background in insurance, securities, the investment advisor space and telecomm deregulation, both in Washington and New York. She has worked at everything from old-school newsletter sheets punched into binders to an international wire service to a hyper-local blog, and has free-lanced for major and regional newspapers and magazines on a variety for features, real estate and lifestyle stories. She found herself covering insurance when all her colleagues covered banking, and figured an actuary could talk circles around a banker and stay in a Rolodex (she still uses one) a lot longer. Elizabeth learned insurance regulatory issues on the back of the demutualization/investment bank movement and Glass Steagall reform efforts in the late 1990s and went religiously to four NAIC meetings a year, sitting in the cheap seats in back with the skeptical accountants, heckling consultants and the pacing consumer advocates. Fast forward, after a decade of real estate and Internet company boom and bust, and she is back on the beat again, covering insurance modernization, which is an evolving process, she has learned, not a destination. Festa can be reached at efesta@sbmedia.com or on Twitter@LHPro_Reg.

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  MetLife’s Landmark Unclaimed Property Settlement Could Approach $700 Million

  By Elizabeth Festa  |  April 24, 2012

  The MetLife Insurance Cos. multi-agency agreement on unpaid life and annuity policies and the reporting of unclaimed property is a landmark agreement, according to NAIC President and Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty.

• From FINRA Case, a Cautionary Tale on Immediate Annuities—Compliance Watch

  By Elizabeth D. Festa  |  July 1, 2011

  A FINRA arbitration panel recently decided in favor of a broker against his former BD in a dispute over a U4 involving an examination over advertisements for a fixed annuity product.

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  FINRA to Stay Aggressive, Focus on Structured Products—Compliance Watch

  By Elizabeth D. Festa  |  June 23, 2011

  At times of great market volatility, says FINRA's Brad Bennett, suitability and marketing problems rise.

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  SEC Cracks Down on RIA, BD Compliance Officers--Compliance Watch

  By Elizabeth D. Festa  |  June 16, 2011

  Two recent SEC cases signal, says a former examiner, that CCOs and their firms are unaware of their vulnerability and liability.

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  Planners Beware: More Probes by CFP Board; Reg S-P Victory Gives It More Teeth—Compliance Watch

  By Elizabeth D. Festa  |  June 10, 2011

  CFP Board enforcement chief Shaw says 1,500 investigations launched in 2010; bankruptcies new focus.

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  Advisors Beware, Client Testimonials on Social Media = Advertising—Compliance Watch

  By Elizabeth D. Festa  |  June 2, 2011

  Steps that social-media using advisors should take to avoid getting dinged by SEC examiners: focus on testimonials and file retention on LinkedIn and Facebook.

• More Challenges for Target Date Funds

  By Elizabeth D. Festa  |  October 1, 2009

  Target-date mutual funds, once the darling of the industry, need lots of improvement when it comes to better practices by managers and fund companies, from...

• B/D Briefing: Keys to B/D Success

  By Elizabeth D. Festa  |  June 1, 2009

  A new study published by Moss Adams and Pershing affiliate iNautix--The Art of Efficiency: A Holistic Approach to Operations--reveals what most suspect but perhaps won't...

• When Less Is More

  By Elizabeth D. Festa  |  June 1, 2009

  It appears that the best broker/dealers limit the number of investment vehicles on their approved list. That's one of the findings of The Art of...

• Industry Hit by Class Actions

  By Elizabeth D. Festa  |  February 1, 2009

  It is no surprise that federal securities class action filings increased in 2008 over the previous year's levels given the upheaval in the financial markets...