No one worries about the insurance industry quite like Tom Gober.
From his home office outside of Pittsburgh, the forensic accountant has been tracking, documenting and highlighting the weaknesses of the $9.3 trillion sector responsible for the financial well-being of millions of Americans.
“I’ve been seeing warning signs for years, and I’ve been very vocal about it,” Gober, 66, said in a recent interview in his living room. More recently, he’s been paying attention to what he says is the most troubling development yet: The influx of private equity’s billions.
The industry waves off its critics as needlessly alarmist, always predicting a disaster that never comes. But that mid-October afternoon, Gober’s phone began to light up. Josh Wander, the co-founder of 777 Partners, a private equity firm on Gober’s radar, had been charged with cheating investors and lenders out of almost $500 million — an alleged fraud enabled in part by its opaque and intricate ties with some US insurance companies.
Some great reporting from Bloomberg this week about how private equity is making a grab for life insurance money and hiding it away where traders are gambling it without much oversight. https://t.co/QNe2jf8OzO pic.twitter.com/AIwLA0GEQT
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) November 19, 2025