LPL Financial Makes Another Gaffe in 2014

This week brought bad tidings for LPL Financial, the largest organization of financial planners in the U.S. According to Investment News, state securities regulators in Massachusetts have reported that LPL Financial has agreed to reimburse $541,000 to senior citizens.

The reimbursement is a result of what Investment News is calling “an oversight” of sales of variable annuities. The senior citizens are being reimbursed funds that they paid when they switched variable annuities.

LPL Financial spokesperson Amanda Keating wrote in an email that “LPL Financial is pleased to have settled this matter in which we cooperated fully with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts regarding a legacy issue that took place from Jan. 1, 2009, to Dec. 31, 2013.”

The agreement in Massachusetts covers 157 transactions and involves persons who were living in Massachusetts and were 65 years of age or older at the time of the transaction. LPL Financial was given a little over two weeks to offer the reimbursements to the parties involved.

This isn’t the first time LPL Financial has been in hot water this year. In June, they were fined two million dollars and ordered to pay $820,000 in restitution. This stemmed from the organization’s failure to keep adequate books and records of 1035 exchanges, which document variable annuity exchanges.