Mega Ban

This just in . . . Mega health insurance banned for 5 years by the state of Massachusetts.

Texas-based Health insurer HealthMarkets Inc. and two subsidiaries have agreed to pay $17 million to settle allegations of unfair and deceptive marketing in Massachusetts.

Attorney General Martha Coakley said on Monday that the firm and its units — Oklahoma-based MEGA Life and Health Insurance and Tennessee-based Mid-West National Life Insurance — will be banned for at least five years from selling their products in Massachusetts. They're allowed to renew existing plans with individuals and small businesses through 2012.

Coakley says the companies used deceptive marketing to convince self-employed people and small businesses to buy health plans with limited benefits, failed to provide benefits mandated by state law and denied health plan membership based on existing conditions.