Insurers Demand Lawyers Be Named in Initiative Ads

The insurance industry’s no-fault initiative campaign said Tuesday that it has sent letters to 30 television and 31 radio stations statewide demanding that they require the California Trial Lawyers Assn. to identify itself on the air as the sponsor of ads blasting the insurers’ no-fault auto initiative.

The industry’s letters charge that the “Consumer Insurance Reform Coalition,” which is identified at the end of the ads as the sponsor of what it says is a $300,000 ad campaign, “has received virtually all of its financial support” from the political action committee of the Trial Lawyers Assn.

The letters add that the stations have a legal “duty to the public to make sure that it is not misinformed about the source of payment and control of broadcast advertising,” and call on them to take “expeditious action” to see that the trial lawyers are named.

“We don’t have any problem with them expressing their point of view,” said Clint Reilly, the no-fault campaign coordinator. “We just don’t want our opponents posing as a consumer organization when they’re really a group of trial lawyers.”

‘Not the Sole Sponsor’

But the president of the Trial Lawyers Assn., J. Gary Gwilliam, responded: “We are not the sole sponsor. It’s made up of a broad-based group, including a whole bunch of consumer folks and the (state) attorney general. It’s just not true they are controlled by us.”

The group sponsoring the anti-no-fault ads is also pushing a competing auto insurance initiative that calls for 20% rate rollbacks for “good drivers,” partial rate regulation, an end to the industry’s antitrust exemptions and protection for the present structure of trial lawyers fees.

The trial lawyers have contributed heavily to the coalition, but a spokesman for the group, Steven Miller, said Tuesday that contribution reports it will file in the next two weeks will show there have been contributions from other sources as well.

The insurers, by their letters to the stations and a recent complaint to the California Fair Political Practices Commis sion, are “trying to divert attention away from the message that we’re trying to communicate,” Miller said.

The insurers’ letters, which also charged that the ads are in some respects “false and misleading,” cited several recent initiative advertising campaigns in which multiple sponsors were identified. The letters were signed “Citizens for No-Fault, Sponsored by California Insurers.”

However, in recent weeks, some of the press releases issued by the no-fault group have failed to mention that the insurance industry is the prime backer of that initiative.

Both the insurers and the trial lawyers have recently tried to depict the initiatives they support as emanating from “citizen” or “consumer” groups, following a California Field Poll published June 10 that indicated that a vast majority of California voters would not be inclined to support insurance initiatives sponsored by either the insurers or the lawyers.

Asked whether they would be inclined to support a car insurance initiative “if all they knew was the person or group listed as the sponsor,” 79% of the 926 persons surveyed said they would be inclined to support one backed by “consumer groups,” and 69% said they would be inclined to support one backed by “consumer activist Ralph Nader.”

Most Disinclined

But only 13% said they would be inclined to vote for one backed by “insurance companies” and only 10% one backed by “trial lawyers.”

All five proposed insurance initiatives adhere to points of view of either the insurers or the trial lawyers, groups that both derive substantial income from the operation of the insurance system. Three are backed by various insurers, one by the trial lawyers, and one, backed by Nader, leans toward the lawyers’ point of view.

Generally, both the insurers and the trial lawyers hope to see reductions in insurance rates come at the expense of the other side. The insurers want to put the burden of rate decreases on the lawyers, cutting their fees and their opportunity to bring lawsuits. The trial lawyers want rate regulation and insurance price rollbacks without any abridgement of lawsuits or fees.