The Danner Article
Patrick Danner is a staff writer for the San Antonio Express News. In an article updated March 5 and entitled "Former USAA CEO Stuart Parker receives more than $6 million golden parachute," Danner wrote about recent executive compensation developments at USAA. He wrote not only about Parker, but also about others, including Parker's successor, Wayne Peacock. Here are the first three sentences of the Danner article:
Former USAA CEO Stuart Parker had a cushy landing following his departure last year from the San Antonio insurance and financial services company. Parker, who retired January 31, 2020, after leading USAA for almost five years, received at least $6.5 million in severance payments. The golden parachute accounted for more than half of the $11.3 million in total compensation five USAA insurance companies paid him last year.
The Cunningham Article
Waylon Cunningham writes about business and technology. On March 5, he wrote an article in the San Antonio Report entitled "Former USAA CEO Stuart Parker netted a $6.5 million severance package." Here are the first three sentences of the Cunningham article:
Former USAA CEO Stuart Parker received a severance package worth at least $6.5 million after he left the company last year. The payments, made after he retired January 31, 2020, formed the bulk of the more than $11.3 million he received in total compensation from five USAA-affiliated companies last year, according to records from the Nebraska Department of Insurance. Besides the severance package, Parker in 2020 also received $336,473 in salaries and $4.8 million in additional compensation, including bonuses.
The USAA Campaign
In the early days of this blog site, I posted three blog items about USAA's campaign to repeal Nebraska's century-old insurance executive compensation disclosure law. William H. McCartney, who at the time was senior vice president and associate general counsel of USAA, led the repeal effort. He had served as Nebraska's director of insurance from 1987 to 1994, and as president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in 1992. The repeal effort failed, and Nebraska's disclosure law remains in effect today. For further details about the USAA campaign, see No. 38 (March 31, 2014), No. 39 (April 7, 2014), and No. 40 (April 11, 2014).
Executive Compensation Data for 2019
Long-time readers are aware that I have been writing about executive compensation in the insurance industry for many years. It began with an article in the October 1975 issue of my monthly newsletter, The Insurance Forum, where I showed the 1974 compensation of senior executives of five large mutual life insurance companies. The information was of such great interest to readers that I steadily expanded the coverage.
When I ended the Forum at the end of 2013, I began showing some executive compensation data on this blog site. For example, the 2019 data from my three sources (the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York State Department of Financial Services, and the Nebraska Department of Insurance) are in No. 381 (July 13, 2020), No. 385 (August 7, 2020), and No. 404 (December 23, 2020).
Chapter 24 of My Memoir
In Chapter 24 of my 2015 book, The Insurance Forum: A Memoir, I summarized my experience over the years in assembling executive compensation data. The experience included many efforts by insurance companies and insurance regulators to prevent access to executive compensation data. Chapter 24 and the book's Table of Contents are here, along with an order form for any reader interested in buying the book.