NYT - New York Times

  • Diana Henriques - NYT - New York Times
    • Mid-2000s - Life Insurance Sales to Militar
  • Gretchen Morgenson - NYT - New York Times
  • Ellen Pollock - NYT - New York Times
    • Booknotes - The Pretender: Martin Frankel, by Ellen Polluck - [VIDEO-CSPAN]
  • Michael Quint - NYT - New York Times
    • 1980s - ~RMBS, monolines
    • 1990s - Prudential, MetLife
  • Mary Rowland - NYT - New York Times
    • 1994 - Series of 3 Article on Life Insurance Sales, Illustrations, etc - Your Own Account, Feb. 27, March 6 and March 13
      • 1994 0403 - Response from Ray Brown - partner in the Browne Company, an insurance firm in Philadelphia and Washington, and a former president of the Greater Washington chapter of the American Society of Chartered Life Underwriters and Chartered Financial Consultants.
  • Leonard Sloan - NYT - New York Times
    • 1970s, 1980s, 1990s: Universal Life
  • Andrew Ross Sorkin - NYT - New York Times
    • 2008 Financial Crisis
  • Joseph B. Treaster - NYT - New York Times
    • 1990s: MetLife,  Prudential
  • - NYT - New York Times

1800s

  • 1869 1017 - NYT - Life Insurance, Its Certainties and Its Dangers, by-? - 1p
    • Insolvencies, 
    • But there is a need of caution and discrimination in examining these subjects.

  • 1877 0320 - NYT - Life Insurance Reform - [link]
  • 1877 1111 - NYT - Collapse of Western Mortgages - [link]
  • Silences
    • New York Times - "Indexed Universal Life" - "IUL"

1900s

  • 1905 1208 - NYT - Life Insurance Reform:  Legislation Should Be as Simple as Possible--Put on the Brakes!, by David Parks Fackler, Consulting Actuary - [link]
    • The theory and practice of life Insurance are not as simple as most people seem to think.

    • TBTF - Too Big to Fail

1930s

  • 1936 0315 - NYT - Title Case Laxity is Laid to Courts; Accused by Sabath Committee Counsel of 'Politics' in Naming Referees. Sees a 'Legal Monopoly.'  A Dozen Firms Are in Control of Reorganizations Here, Kraushaar Charges - [link]
    • 1936 – GOV (House) – Investigation of Real Estate Bondholders’ Reorganizations – Adolph J. Sabath (D-IL)  ---  [BonkNote]

1950s

  • 1950 1208 - NYT - Life Concerns Gird Against Atom Risk - [link]

1960s

  • 1964 0718 - NYT - Dr. Solomon S. Huebner: Dead Pioneer in Insurance Education; Professor at Pennsylvania U. Developed First Course—Author of 11 Books - [link]

1970s

  • 1973 0224 - NYT - Insurance Called ‘Consumer Fraud’, Richard D. Lyons, Special to The New York Times - [link]
    • 1973 - SOA - The Actuary - Editorial by ACW (Andrew C. Webster), p2 - 3p
  • 1973 0404 - NYT - Insurance Fraud Charged by S.E.C. to Equity Funding, By Robert J. Cole - [link]
  • 1973 0605 - NYT - Insurance Commissioners Plan Surveillance Study, by Robert J. Cole, Special to The New York Times - [link]
    • ...surveillance techniques that failed to uncover the mammoth insurance scandals at the Equity Funding Corporation of America
    • ...Illinois — the home state of the Equity Funding Life Insurance Company
  • 1973 0605 - NYT / UPI - Real Cost Methods Urged, by-? - [link]
    • [Bonk: Underneath - 1973 0605 - NYT - Insurance Commissioners Plan Surveillance Study, by Robert J. Cole]
    • The Administration today urged state insurance commissioners to find a better way to let consumers know how much they are really paying for life insurance.
    • Virginia Knauer, President Nixon's consumer adviser, said life insurance customers are “buying blind” and being “bamboozled” by the methods life insurance salesmen have traditionally used to explain how much insurance costs.
  • 1973 0730 - NYT - Dirks Counts Cost of His Moment of Truth on Equity - [Equity Funding Scandal], By Robert J. Cole - [link-Paywall Free]
    • Raymond L. Dirks, the stock sleuth who triggered the collapse of the Equity Funding Corporation of America four months ago is just beginning to find out how dearly his brief moment of truth has cost him.
    • The New York Stock Ex change has charged Mr. Dirks—who told his clients tale of bogus insurance policies being written at Equity — with fraud, trafficking in rumors and giving his clients inside information.
    • The Securities and Exchange Commission has threatened similar action.
  • 1975 0619 - NYT - With "Life-Cycle" Insurance Policies Coverage May Be Changed With Needs (Adjustable Life), Leonard Sloane - [link-Paywall Free] 
  • 1976 0811 - NYT - New Policy Arises In Insurance Field Readable Language, By Israel Shenker - [link]
    • Insurance policies may be balm for the afflicted but they are murder on the English language.
  • 1976 1216 - NYT - F.T.C. Examining Data Given Buyers of Life Insurance - [link]
    • The Federal Trade Commission announced today an investigation into the $29‐billion‐a‐year life insurance industry to determine whether consumers are not being properly informed on the costs of coverage.
  • 1978 0406 - NYT - $1.9 Million Payment Ordered in Libel Case, Sierra Life Insurance Co. - [link]
    • A judge has ordered The Twin Falls Times News to pay $1.9 million in libel damages after it refused to disclose its sources for articles that an insurance company said ruined its business.
  • 1979 0930 - NYT - The Appeal of Life Insurance Fades, But Most Families Still Buy It, By Edwin McDowell  ---  [BonkNote]   ---  [link-Paywall Free]

1980s

  • 1981 0331 - NYT - Talking Business with Max Karl of MGIC; Home Building And the Future, by Michael Quint - [link]
    • Besides insurance guaranteeing repayment of principal, I think the day is coming when insurance companies will offer policies guaranteeing the timing of interest and principal payments.
  • 1982 0116 - NYT - Consumer Saturday; Answering Essential Questions About Life Insurance, Michael Decourcy Hinds, Special To the New York Times - [link]
    •  Roger Formisano Study
  • 1982 0715 - NYT - Senators Seek to Keep Life Policies' High Yield, Thomas C. Hayes, Special To the New York Times - [link]
  • 1982 0809 - NYT - 'Growing Equity' Mortgages, by Michael Quint - [link]
    • GNMA, GEM, FHLB, Merrill Lynch, Lewis S. Ranieri, managing director at Salomon Brothers, USAA (Mr. Roth)
  • 1982 1113 - NYT - Your Money; Universal Life: Tax Changes, By Leonard Sloane - [link]
  • 1983 0927 - NYT - Baldwin, A Casualty of Fast Expansion, Files for Bankruptcy - [link]
  • 1984 0616 - NYT - Your Money: Insurers Offer Hybrid Policy, By Leonard Sloane - [link]
  • 1984 0707 - NYT - Baldwin to Sell Ambac Indemnity - [link]
  • 1984 0729 - NYT - Annuities: A New Life After Baldwin-United's Fall, Leonard Sloane - [link]
  • 1985 1117 - NYT - Insurance Packaged For Investors, By Pamela G. Hollie - [link]
  • 1986 0706 - NYT - Personal Finance; The New Vogue in Life Insurance - (Single Premium Life Insurance), Donald Jay Korn - [link]
    • 1986 08 - NYT - Life Insurance (response) - by-?- [link]
  • 1986 1119 - NYT - Drexel-Boesky Tie For Some Investors, by Robert J. Cole - [link]
    • Lincoln Life, Eli Broad, who heads Kaufman & Broad Inc (SunLife), Bankers Life and Casualty Company, 
  • 1986 1227 - NYT - Why Insurers Covet Brokers, Leonard Sloane - [link]

1990s

  • 1991 0108 - NYT - Talking Business with Kramer, Author of Insurance Study; Comparing Risks: Banks vs. Insurers, by Michael Quint - [link]
    • A recent study commissioned by the Insurance Information Institute, "Rating the Risks, Assessing the Solvency Threat in the Financial Services Industry," concluded that the insurance industry's problems were not nearly so severe as those in banking. Orin S. Kramer, a consultant based in New York, discussed the study, which he wrote.
      • Q. Is a solvency crisis likely for any of the three industries you studied?
      • A. It is important to distinguish between theoretical possibilities and realistic probabilities. While I can imagine conditions that might produce insolvency for a major insurance company, I think that is extremely improbable over the next several years, and a generalized insurance solvency crisis is even less likely. 
  • 1991 0511 - NYT - California Curbs First Capital Life, - [link]
  • 1991 0521 - NYT - Mutual Benefit Life And Cigna Ratings, by-? - [link]
  • 1991 0601 - NYT - Shielding Insurer From Its Parent, By Eric N. Berg - [link]
  • 1991 0717 - NYT - Opinion: Insurance Woes Are No Disaster, Is the life insurance industry another savings and loan fiasco in the making?, (Mutual Benefit Life), by-? - [link]
  • 1991 0724 - NYT - Life Insurer Failures Point Up Flaws in Safety Nets of States, by Eric M. Berg - [link]
  • 1991 0903 - NYT - Worry Over Retirement Funds, By Eric N. Berg - [link]
    • GIC's, Executive Life, Mutual Benefit
  • 1993 0307 - NYT - States Set Fines for Met Life, by Michael Quint - [link]
    • The Florida Report, Thomas Tew - Lawyer, Tom Gallagher - Florida Insurance Commissioner
  • 1993 0326 - NYT - Insurers Cited on Barring Rebates, By Peter Kerr - [link]
  • 1993 1030 - NYT - Insurance; Confusion Over Policies Leads to Talk of Change, Leonard Sloane - [link]
    • Buyers of life insurance are entitled to descriptions of their policies and how they work.
    • After a long period of consumer complaints, Congressional hearings and industry reports on the insurance tables, widely known as illustrations, state regulators are preparing to take action. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners intends to adopt by March disclosure guidelines for illustrations that the states can use as a model to create their own laws.
    • Judy Faucett
      • While acknowledging some abuses in illustrations, insurers and actuaries say buyers often misunderstand what is being presented to them.
        • "Life insurance is not like a bank account where you know what the interest rate is going to be," said Judy Faucett, a partner in Coopers & Lybrand and chairwoman of the task force on illustrations for the American Academy of Actuaries.
        • "An illustration is not a guarantee, or even a best estimate, of how that policy is going to look in 20 years."
  • 1994 0202 - NYT - New York State Warns Insurers, by Michael Quint - [link]
    • The New York State Insurance Department warned life insurance companies yesterday that if they failed to control their agents and stop improper advertising, the department could require that some companies submit advertising for approval before use.
    • Although no other company has been accused of improper sales tactics on the same scale as Metropolitan's Tampa office, the industry is worried that the Metropolitan affair could be the catalyst for new Federal regulation
    • In addition to Metropolitan's activities, there have been long-simmering complaints about agents using misleading examples to show financial benefits of life insurance.
  • 1994 0227 - NYT - Your Own Account; What's Wrong With This Picture?, By Mary Rowland - [link-paywall-free]
    • Glenn Daily, James Hunt, Lapse-Supported, Guarantees Only, NAIC, Illustrations
  • 1994 0306 - NYT - Your Own Account; Putting Life Insurance Into Focus, By Mary Rowland - [link-paywall-free]
  • 1994 0308 - NYT - Regulators Seek Limits on Insurer Sales Pitches, by Michael Quint - [link]
    • NAIC, Illustrations, NALU
    • State insurance regulators are moving closer to sharply limiting how sales agents may describe the future benefits of life insurance policies, despite strong objections from insurance companies and agents.
    • The rule is intended to curb the widespread use by agents of computer printouts of insurance policy benefits that exaggerate how the policy's value grows as the company pays dividends to the holder. When interest rates declined in the last five years, many projections made in earlier years proved to be far too optimistic.
    • The insurance commissioners are not expected to recommend the proposal as a law that states should pass until June. But for now, Mr. Lyons said, "the public's and the politicians' perceptions of sales abuses have been so raised that people are ready to accept more radical approaches."
    • Insurance companies have, however, persuaded regulators to change some parts of the proposed rules. One idea, to give consumers the right to sue insurance companies about misleading sales tactics, has been deleted.
    • William N. Albus, senior general counsel for the National Association of Life Underwriters, which represents life insurance sales agents, said illustrations of future benefits "are essential to explaining how a policy works." He suggested that agents should be allowed to project current dividends into the future and include an example of how a policy would look if its dividends were reduced by one percentage point.
  • 1994 0313 - NYT - Your Own Account; Replacing a Policy May Be a Bad Idea, By Mary Rowland - [link-paywall-free]
  • 1994 0328 - NYT - Transfers By Insurers Under Fire, Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH), by Michael Quint - [link]
  • 1994 0403- NYT - In Defense of Policy Illustrations - To the Editor, From Ray Browne - [link-paywall-free]
    • re: Mary Rowland - Series of 3 Articles - Your Own Account, Feb. 27, March 6 and March 13
    • ...partner in the Browne Company, an insurance firm in Philadelphia and Washington, and a former president of the Greater Washington chapter of the American Society of Chartered Life Underwriters and Chartered Financial Consultants.
  • 1994 0622 - NYT - Rebuke and Revenge at Met Life, (Rick Sabo - Agent), by Michael Quint - [link]
  • 1994 0629 - NYT - Met Life Is Said to Be Facing U.S. Investigation for Fraud, by Michael Quint - [link]
    • The inquiry by the United States Attorney's office comes as Met Life has been besieged with lawsuits by former customers contending they were misled, and by former agents who say the company wrongfully terminated their employment.
    • In one recent suit, a former agent, Robert M. Slade of Happauge, L.I., said the company's unwillingness to distinguish between the misleading sales practices in the Tampa office and tactics of other agents who sold life insurance as a retirement product had opened the door to groundless complaints.
  • 1995 0415 - NYT - Mutual Life Set to Name New Chief, By Michael Quint - [link]
  • 1995 0526 - NYT - 6-State Force to Open Inquiry Into Insurance Sales Practices, by Michael Quint - [link]
  • 1995 0719 - NYT - Taking On Insurance Giants, by Michael Quint - [link]
    • Ronald R. Parry, a soft-spoken lawyer from Kentucky - Class Actions
      • Prudential, MetLife, ....Mr. Parry has filed suits against six other insurers, including New York Life, Equitable Life Assurance Society and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance.
      • The lawsuits accuse the companies of using misleading sales tactics to sell life insurance as a retirement or savings plan (the same charge that led Met Life to settle the class-action lawsuit and pay a related $20 million fine to state regulators last year). The suits also say there were other misdeeds relating to life insurance sales.
         
  • 1995 0825 - NYT - New York State Opens 2 Doors On Insurance, by Michael Quint - [link]
    • Monolines, financial guarantee companies, MBIA
    • One ruling, which was opposed by some large New York-based insurance companies, allows financial guarantee companies that are best known for insuring municipal bonds to expand into the business of insuring investment contracts issued by insurance companies.
    • Another ruling, which was favored by some New York insurers, opens the door for them to provide guarantees on interest and principal of investment contracts where the assets backing the contract are controlled by the pension fund, not the insurance company. That arrangement, which protects the pension fund from losses caused by market downturns, has been sold by insurers outside New York and by some banks as a way to earn fees without owning the billions of dollars of investments that would inflate balance sheets.
  • 1995 0929 - NYT - Could This Be You?, by Michael Quint - [link]
    • David Woods and other agents created the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education, with the convenient acronym of LIFE.
  • https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/21/business/investing-it-a-way-to-cash-in-as-insurers-get-the-urge-to-merge.html
  • 1996 0613 - NYT - Insurers Lobby, Quietly, to Alter Consumer Law, By Clifford J. Levy - [link]
    • Agent Commissions, New Law in New York
    • Asked why consumers were not involved, Mr. Muhl said: "I am not sure that you are aware of one of my roles. One of my tasks is to represent the consumer's interests. So the consumer was well represented."
      • Consumer groups scoffed at that.
      • "I don't think it makes sense to override these controls without our side having an opportunity to say, 'Hey, there are some things that we want,' " said Robert Hunter, a former insurance commissioner in Texas who is director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, a coalition of 250 consumer groups.
      • "They knew that they could have worked with us," Mr. Hunter said. "They have just come in and tried to slam-dunk this."
    • Edward J. Muhl = Superintendent of the State Insurance, Department
  • 1996 1218 - NYT - Prudential Policyholders' Deadline Nears, by Joseph B. Treaster - [link]
    • The last opportunity for 10.7 million Prudential Insurance policyholders to battle the company on their own over whether they were cheated by agents is fast approaching.
  • 1997 0311 - NYT - Life Insurance Settlement (Prudential), b - [link]
  • 1997 0525 - NYT -  A Tale of Unraveled Fortune, Joseph B. Treaster - [link]
  • 1997 0828 - NYT - For Plaintiffs, More of Same in Insurance Accords, By Reed Abelson - [link]
  • 1998 0102 - NYT - Financial Services Consolidate, but Regulation Is Still Fragmented, By Joseph B. Treaster - [link]
    • Many financial experts argue that insurance regulation is the weakest link in the system. Generally, the state insurance regulators have tiny staffs and tiny budgets compared with the enormous companies they oversee. 
    • Neil D. Levin, New York's top insurance regulator and a newcomer to the field, takes a critical view of the system.
      • Mr. Levin, a former investment banker who was appointed Superintendent of Insurance last February after serving as Commissioner of Banking, says that unless the state-by-state system of insurance regulation becomes much more ''effective, efficient and coordinated,'' the creation of a Federal insurance regulator ''is going to start to look pretty compelling.''
  • 1999 0416 - NYT - Metro Business; Life Insurance Refunds, By The Associated Press, [MetLife, Richard Blumenthal, deceptive sales practices, churning]  -  [link]

2000s

  • AIG - Media
  • Diana Henriques
    • Mid-2000s - Life Insurance Sales to Militar
    • Late-2000s - Bernie Madoff
  • ⇒  Bond Insurers, MBIA, Ambac
  • 2000 0825 - NYT - $55 Million MetLife Settlement - [link]
  • 2002 1127 - NYT - Some Military Fund Investors End Up Bearing Heavy 'Load', by Tom Lauricella - [link]
  • 2002 1212 - NYT - Court Ponders Limits Of Punitive Damages, By Linda Greenhouse - [link]
  • 2003 0719 - NYT - Wealthy Family Is Suing Lawyer Over Tax Plan, By David Cay Johnston - [link-Paywall Free]
    • In May 2000, plaintiff Marvin Schein and defendant Jonathan Blattmachr met at a Fundraiser. At that time. Blattmachr told Schein about a tax saving strategy called the Spectrum split dollar strategy.

  • 2003 1226 - NYT - Insurers Want One Regulator Instead of 50, By Joseph B. Treaster - [link]
    • After more than 150 years of state-by-state regulation, many of the biggest insurance companies are leading a revolution to establish a federal regulator in Washington and shift state regulators to a secondary role.
    • They also say they need a voice in policy debates in Washington, as banks and mutual fund companies have in the Comptroller of the Currency and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
    • ''We're suffering competitively,'' said Frank Keating, the executive director of the American Council of Life Insurers, the industry's biggest and most influential trade group. ''There is no way we can be nimble and responsive in the marketplace with an ossified regulatory process.''
    • Gary E. Hughes, the trade group's general counsel and its field commander for regulation, said change was needed urgently. ''The status quo is killing us,'' he said.
    • ⇒  ''This is such an important issue to C.E.O.'s that they are stepping out from behind their trade association and taking this argument directly to Congress themselves,'' Mr. Hughes said.
    • To achieve their goal of federal regulation, the insurers have come up with an approach that would give companies a choice between switching to regulation by Washington or staying with the states. The plan, which they refer to as an ''optional federal charter,'' offers something for everyone in hopes of creating powerful support and undermining opposition.
    • State regulators insist they are making progress in reducing inefficiency; the life insurers disagree. ''There is an enormous gulf between what the states apparently think they are doing and what the industry thinks is a very substantial lack of progress,'' said Mr. Hughes of the life insurance trade group.
    • The insurers say their main problem in Washington is that no government official is responsible for their industry and available to explain its functions and needs to the rest of government. ''We have no one sitting at the table,'' said J. Barry Griswell, the chief executive of the Principal Financial Group, a big insurer based in Des Moines.
    • [More] 
    • In a study of state insurance regulation in September, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that states concentrated on the financial stability of insurance companies rather than on whether customers were being treated fairly. Moreover, the report said, some companies were examined for financial strength frequently ''and others not at all.''
      • [Bonk: 2003 09 - GAO - Common Standards and Improved Coordination Needed to Strengthen Market Regulation - gao.gov/products/gao-03-433 - Full Report - 53p
  • 2007 1017 - NYT - Pennsylvania Regulators Sue Deloitte & Touche in the Collapse of Reliance Insurance, By Joseph B. Treaster - [link]
  • 2007 1201 - NYT - Short Seller Sinks Teeth Into Insurer, by Joe Nocera - [link]
  • 2008 0202 - NYT - 8 Banks Discuss Aid for Bond Insurer, Vikas Bajaj and  - [link]
  • 2008 0513 - NYT - Maurice Greenberg tells Board that AIG is in 'Crisis' - [link]
    • "Several top shareholders of AIG have called me expressing deep concern about the persistent and seemingly endless destruction of value at AIG," Greenberg said in the letter, which was dated May 11. A copy was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
    • [Bonk: Letter - May 11 - [link]]
  • 2008 1003 - NYT - A.I.G. Uses $61 Billion of Fed Loan, - [link]
  • 2008 1114 - NYT - What Happens When Your Insurer Goes Under?, - [link]
    • That said, Mr. Watson, the father of Katie, is quick to note that when selecting his daughter’s annuity, he consulted the ratings carefully before deciding on Executive Life.
      • “Our attorney said that banks have failed, savings and loans have failed, but never in the history of our republic has an A. M. Best top-rated company failed,” he said.
      • “That was enough for me.”
    • The parents of Katie Watson, a girl in Phoenix who suffered permanent brain damage after a hospital stay, put the proceeds from their legal settlement into an Executive Life annuity to help care for her.
      • After the company’s demise, however, their annuity payments fell nearly by half.
      • Her father, Vince, said that the Watsons ended up in foreclosure on a home they had bought to accommodate caring for Katie, and the total shortfall between what the family had received and what it was supposed to get was at least $1 million.
  • 2009 0204 - NYT - At Madoff Hearing, Lawmakers Lay Into S.E.C., by Diana B. Henriques[link]
  • 2009 0303 - NYT - Fed Chief Says Insurance Giant Acted Irresponsibly, David Stout and - [link]
    • Bernanke - "This was a hedge fund, basically, that was attached to a large and stable insurance company.”
  • 2009 0731 - NYT - After Rescue, New Weakness Seen at A.I.G., - [link]
    • 2009 0731 - Letter - NAIC to NYT (New York Times) - re: The New York Times July 30 article, “After Rescue, New Weakness Seen at A.I.G” by Mary Williams Walsh - 1p
    • 2009 0803 - InsuranceJournal.com - States Dispute Article Questioning AIG Insurance Units’ Finances - [link]
  • 2009 1223 - NYT - Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won, by Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story - [link]

2010s

  • 2010 0206 - NYT - Testy Conflict With Goldman Helped Push A.I.G. to Edge, by Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story - [link]
    • 2010 0410 - HuffPost - The Times Story On Goldman's Role in AIG's Downfall Is More Damning When Placed In Context, By David Fiderer, - [link]
  • 2010 0325 - NYT - An A.I.G. Lesson From Wisconsin, Rolfe Winkler and  - [link]
  • 2010 0724 - NYT - Seeing vs. Doing,  By Gretchen Morgenson - [link]
    • “WHAT did they know, and when did they know it?”
    • Those are questions investigators invariably ask when trying to determine who’s responsible for an offense or a misdeed.
  • 2011 0728 - NYT - Settlement of More Than $1 Billion From Madoff-Related Funds, By Reuters - [link]
  • 2014 1003 - NYT - Six Years Later, We’re Still Litigating the Bailouts. Here’s What We Know, - [link]
  • 2016 0813 - NYT - Why Some Life Insurance Premiums Are Skyrocketing, by Julie Creswell and Mary Williams Walsh - [link-Paywall Free]
  • 2016 1209 - NYT - Accusations of Fraud at Wells Fargo Spread to Sham Insurance Policies, By Stacy Cowley and Matthew Goldstein - [link]
    • Prudential, Whistleblowers, MyTerm