Didn’t ‘Clear’ Consumer Panel With Industry, Says Insurance Commissioner

A memo released at a state Senate confirmation hearing for Insurance Commissioner Roxani Gillespie appears to show her telling a high Deukmejian Administration official last year that proposed members of a consumer advisory panel within the Insurance Department had been “cleared” with the insurance industry.

But Gillespie denied Tuesday that she had been at all involved in such clearances or, in fact, was responsible for reporting them.

“Those memos were used routinely at that time to communicate with the governor’s office,” she said in an interview. “I was conscious of the general tenor of what was in them. I did not review the specifics.”

The Feb. 13, 1986, memo to John Geoghegan, secretary of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, was forwarded over Gillespie’s signature.

But the commissioner, whose name will come before the full Senate by the end of the month for approval, said Tuesday that what appears to be her signature is actually nothing but a signature stamp that was affixed at the time to all such communications.

She said that the memo was actually prepared by a staff counsel and that the decision to allow industry leaders to review the names of the appointees to the consumer panel was made by her predecessor as insurance commissioner, Bruce Bunner. At the time, Gillespie was serving as Bunner’s principal deputy.

Bunner is working for an accounting firm in New York City. His secretary said Tuesday that he was returning from Europe and unavailable for comment.

The appointment, conduct and, most recently, the falling into inactivity of the 11-member consumers panel have been made an issue in Gillespie’s confirmation proceedings by one of the panel members, Steven Miller, head of the Los Angeles-based Insurance Consumer Action Network.

Miller--who was put on the panel by Gillespie last January, months after the initial appointments--told last week’s hearing that the panel, composed of a majority of government officials and insurance brokers and only a minority of consumers, has seldom functioned as an effective adviser to the department and that its last two scheduled meetings have been called off and future ones postponed indefinitely.

The Senate Rules Committee sent Gillespie’s nomination to the Senate floor on a vote of 4 to 0, with Sen. Henry J. Mello (D-Watsonville) abstaining. But Miller’s complaints apparently concerned the Insurance Department leadership, because within days the chief of the department’s Consumer Affairs Division, Everett Brookhart, sent out a letter to all the panelists saying that the department appreciates the concerns that have been expressed over the postponed meetings.

Noting that legislation has been introduced that would make the panel a more formal group, Brookhart wrote, “We would like to await any actions by lawmakers before sharing department ideas to give better support and direction to the panel. We hope to be in touch shortly.”

Gillespie said in the interview Tuesday, “It is true I am probably going to change the makeup of the panel if I get an opportunity to do so.” She indicated that she has become annoyed with Miller’s role as a critic.

But she insisted that any membership changes she would make would strengthen the consumer hand and reduce influence on the panel by insurance brokers.

Asked about how effective the panel has been, Gillespie responded: “It has been slow, because even though certain people have worked hard on the panel, others have not had a commitment. We’ve asked for some resignations so we could make the place for some new appointments.”

Miller, however, charged in an interview that Gillespie hopes to reconstitute the entire panel and he predicted that if she does so, he and another outspoken consumer advocate, Julie Cardenas of the Public Law Center in San Diego, probably will not be on it.