Ex-agent ordered to return $1M to estate
Family says uncle was pressured about his will
Former insurance agent Blanche Berenzweig must return more than $1 million she took from the estate of a now-deceased client whom she had befriended, the state insurance commissioner ordered.
In his decision released Tuesday, Commissioner of Insurance Theodore Nickel agreed with an administrative
law judge’s ruling in March that Berenzweig illegally pocketed the annuity money and ordered that her insurance license, which she surrendered last year, be permanently revoked.
Nickel’s action effectively orders that the money go to the family members of a north side Milwaukee man who lived like a hermit in his final years.
“We’re hopeful this case will serve as a warning to others who are considering taking advantage of vulnerable, elderly insurance consumers,” Nickel said in a statement Tuesday.
LeRoy Ern died of advanced dementia in 2016 at the age of 92. He left everything to Berenzweig, a now-retired insurance agent who lives in Mequon and the Las Vegas area.
Among his holdings were two annuities with a combined value of just over $1 million. Berenzweig collected $276,648 from one annuity in May 2016 and an additional $734,467 from the second annuity the following month, state records show.
Berenzweig, 70, “engaged in multiple unfair trade practices involving an elderly consumer,” a statement from Nickel’s office said. “Specifically, she appointed herself the consumer’s power of attorney, effectuated personal financial transactions, and knowingly allowed herself to become beneficiary of the consumer’s annuities, all violations of state law.”
Eleven of Ern’s 12 nieces and nephews are demanding that a court void his 2009 will, arguing that Berenzweig improperly pressured their reclusive uncle into making her the sole beneficiary. The will was drafted by a lawyer who shared a Mequon office with Berenzweig.
If the will were voided, Ern’s estate, which is worth at least $1.6 million, would go to family members. The annuities are currently frozen, court records show.
Kevin Demet, attorney for the family members, said Nickel’s order boosts the chances his clients will win the court case.
“I don’t know how she overcomes this when it comes to trial,” Demet said, referring to the probate case that is scheduled to be tried in the fall in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
Demet noted that Nickel’s order endorsed all of the findings in the earlier decision by Administrative Law Judge Rachel Pings. Key in those findings was Ping’s conclusion that Berenzweig “profited illegally by more than $1 million.”
Nickel’s “order is the equivalent of a fraud finding,” Demet said.
Berenzweig’s attorney, Michael Ganzer, could not be reached Tuesday. Berenzweig did not return messages left with her son.
She has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said that she tried to talk Ern out of making her the sole beneficiary to his estate.
Ern initially met Berenzweig in 1993 when she helped him purchase an annuity. They became reacquainted in 2008 when Ern was having a problem with that policy.
A friendship developed, Berenzweig testified during October hearings in Madison. That led to frequent visits to her Mequon office where they discussed history, current events and other topics, she said.
It wasn’t until 2013 that Berenzweig saw the inside of Ern’s modest home on the 4600 block of N. Parkway Ave. It had become a fire trap and dump, with piles of newspaper, junk, food and assorted garbage strewn throughout the house, according to testimony during last year’s hearings before Pings.
Ern was forcibly removed and put in an assisted living facility.
Ping’s opinion was sharply critical of Berenzweig’s actions during Ern’s final years.
“In 2009 and 2010, (Berenzweig) took advantage of an isolated, elderly customer,” Pings wrote in the February proposed order. “By becoming Ern’s POA, she put herself in a position to entirely manage his money . ... She further exploited Ern’s trust and isolation by knowingly being named as the beneficiary of his annuities when she had no insurable interest in his life.”
Pings noted in her opinion that insurance regulators consider Berenzweig “an unethical insurance agent who took advantage of her position of trust with a lonely old man so she could benefit from his sizable estate when he died.”