It's a make-or-break moment for California's insurance commissioner

Opinion by Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle / July 17, 2023

California has the strongest insurance protections for consumers in the country. It’s time — with top insurers refusing to write new policies in the state — for Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara to flex them to tell Big Insurance to back off, advocates say.

SNIP

“What we need right now is courage,” Harvey Rosenfield, the founder of Consumer Watchdog who wrote California’s landmark insurance law embodied in Proposition 103, told me. “He’ll (Lara) either step up — or he will fold.”

Rosenfield and other consumer advocates say Lara has the power under Proposition 103 — which voters approved in 1988 — to force insurers to write policies under the law when there is a shortage.

Lara disagrees. “What they’re saying is simply not supported by law (according to) our legal team,” he told me. There isn’t a shortage now because there are more than 100 insurers still selling policies in California and top insurers haven’t left the state, Lara has said, they’ve just paused expanding.

LINK: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/joegarofoli/article/ricardo-lara-insurance-18197757.php

Highlights from the link:

• Allstate Insurance isn’t writing new policies in California. Neither is State Farm Insurance. Auto insurance is getting harder to get, too.

• When Rosenfield crafted Prop. 103 he envisioned the insurance commissioner as a fearless warrior, someone ready to pound the bully pulpit on behalf of beleaguered consumers.

• Lara has been dogged by concerns that he’s too tight with the industry he regulates, accepting more than $270,000 in campaign contributions from 56 people with ties to the industry ... after pledging not to take donations from the people he was going to regulate.

John Garamend (California’s first elected insurance commissioner): “My predecessors kissed the insurance industry’s butt here for 100 years, and consumers got screwed for it. Damn right I’m confrontational. I’ve kicked butt instead of kissed it.”

• Lara: “The only consideration I have is protecting consumers and doing the right thing for consumers in California.”

• Rosenfield: “If he doesn't handle this correctly and (doesn’t) use the power that Proposition 103 gives him, then I don't see how he comes out of this as a candidate for further public office.”

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I voted for Lara in the last election because he's a Democrat and I'll always support the party. But Lara's campaign contributions, and the tight ties with the insurance industry, were as much an issue in the last election as they are now.

I agree with consumer advocates -- time to step up.

BTW, "100 insurers still selling policies in California" doesn't necessarily equate to good or even adequate coverage, or that these companies operate in the best interests of consumers.