Maverick Funds Insurance Measure

More than 93% of the $2 million collected through June 23 to support the auto insurance initiative introduced by Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) came from companies headed by the same insurance executive, according to contribution reports made available Tuesday.

Coastal Insurance Co. and its holding company, Advent, both headquartered in the San Fernando Valley, are headed by Harry O. Miller, a dissident in the insurance industry who does not support the industry’s proposed no-fault auto insurance initiative that will also be on the November ballot.

The reports filed with the California secretary of state’s office show that Miller’s companies lent the so-called “Consumers for Lower Auto Insurance Rates” committee $1.57 million, made cash contributions of $175,000 and non-monetary contributions valued at $130,841. This is a total of $1.87 million.

The committee also collected $133,495 in small contributions from people who responded to a fund-raising appeal in its mail petition circulation campaign to qualify the initiative. Other than that, it collected less than $4,000 in other gifts, including $1,000 from the Assn. of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and $500 from Cal Worthington Auto Sales.

The initiative, which is numbered Proposition 101 on the ballot, would mandate a 50% rollback in bodily injury liability premiums in exchange for restrictions on victims collecting damages for pain and suffering incurred in accidents.

It has a sunset clause, requiring the Legislature to take action after it lapses Dec. 31, 1992.

Former State Official

Miller, 56, served as a deputy state insurance commissioner in Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown’s Administration and has been involved in a number of law and insurance firms.

He was out of town Tuesday and not available for comment.

Coastal sells auto policies mainly to high-risk drivers and Miller is known to believe that no-fault, under which each driver having an accident collects damages from his own insurer regardless of fault, would not be in his economic interests.

Miller said in an interview last winter that he believed that unless the insurance industry undertook to “reform itself,” public antipathy would grow to such a point that the industry might find itself swept aside, replaced by government insurance. So, he said, he had decided to put up his company’s funds as a kind of preventive measure.

Asked Tuesday whether he was embarrassed at getting so much support from just one source, Polanco declared:

“Mr. Miller had the courage to come out and voice the opinion that insurance premiums are in fact unaffordable. As a result he has been asked to leave the insurance (industry’s lobbying) association. . . . For Mr. Miller to come out and do what he has done is certainly putting the issue of real meaningful auto insurance reform on the doorsteps of people.”

Lee Bluestone, a deputy to Miller, said the reason that so much of what Miller’s companies provided was in loans rather than gifts was because it was hoped that contributions would come in from others and that some of the money would eventually be reimbursed. If this does not happen, then the loans will be converted to permanent gifts, he said.

Of the more than $2 million collected thus far, the initiative committee has spent $1.7 million, according to the report, including $979,804 with Campaign Management Inc. of Newport Beach, a firm headed by Harvey Englander, $185,070 for mail and $121,358 with Thom Poffenberger & Associates of Santa Monica, a signature-gathering firm.

The competition among five insurance initiatives already has set a record for total spending on an initiative battle, exceeding $10 million so far.

In other developments Tuesday:

* Twentieth Century, the state’s sixth-largest seller of auto insurance, said it is implementing an average 14.5% rate increase for all its policyholders in the six-month period that began May 1. It is one of several companies to announce rate increases in the period prior to the election.

* The insurance industry’s no-fault campaign said it will file its contribution report July 29, eight days later than earlier announced. Each of the initiative efforts must file within 35 days of being qualified for the ballot.