Amwest Insurance Cuts Earnings, Cites Prop. 103

Amwest Insurance Group in Woodland Hills revised and lowered its previously reported second-quarter earnings to reflect its estimate of how Proposition 103 will affect its financial results.

Amwest said it reduced its net income for the three months that ended June 30 to $586,000 from the $879,000 it originally reported July 18. Its profit for the first six months of 1989 was cut to $1.58 million from $1.87 million.

Amwest provides bail bonds and other surety bonds and has gone to court to have surety lines excluded from Proposition 103, an insurance-reform initiative passed in November that calls for insurers to roll back their rates.