A Turn in the Quest for Consumer Relief : Insurance commissioner: Nominations of Garamendi and Bannister may reflect change in emphasis toward reducing company costs as a way to cut high cost of coverage.

The nominations of Democratic state Sen. John Garamendi and Republican insurance agent Wes Bannister in the race to become California’s first elected insurance commissioner apparently represent a turn in the search for lower insurance premiums toward proposals to fund price cuts by reducing the companies’ claims and legal costs.

Both Garamendi and Bannister, in looking forward to what is expected to be a low-key general election campaign, spoke Wednesday of the importance of reducing costs to the companies as a vital prerequisite to bringing down California insurance prices.

That represented a distinct change in emphasis from the talk about simply rolling back companies’ prices that marked the losing campaigns of Democrats Bill Press and Conway Collis and had been the rhetoric of the backers of Proposition 103 for the last two years.

Garamendi declared Wednesday that Proposition 103 “needs to be rewritten” and he said that as commissioner he would establish a strong lobbying office in Sacramento to push new legislation to do that.

Bannister said that in the campaign “we have to talk about reduction of premiums through no-fault insurance and through reduction of fraud.”

Garamendi vowed to make the commissioner’s office the nation’s best consumer protection agency, and remarked of Bannister, “I don’t think the people of California are about to elect an insurance agent to watch over the insurance industry.” But the general tone of his and Bannister’s remarks cheered insurers Wednesday and concerned their rivals, the trial lawyers. Often, when cutting costs to the companies is mentioned as a means of bringing about lower rates, legal reform, cutting back on claimants’ right to sue and the lawyers’ income are mentioned in the next breath.

Such insurers as Pete Ingham, general counsel for State Farm, Wednesday lauded the California election returns, both in the governor’s race, where Democratic nominee Dianne Feinstein spoke Tuesday night of cutting claims costs, and the insurance commissioner’s contest as representing a new attitude in California toward reform.

But Gary Gwilliam, a former president of the California Trial Lawyers Assn., said the results were a shame and came about only because of divisions in the consumer movement that saw such consumer or lawyer-oriented candidates as Bill Press, Conway Collis and Walter Zelman split the vote against the candidates more favorable to company views.

Gwilliam said that fielding a single candidate in the future should be a top priority.

Press, who ran second for the Democratic nomination, losing to Garamendi by about 175,000 votes, said Wednesday: “Somebody told me this morning it was like Beirut. We were killing our own.” He noted that by adding Zelman’s 189,000 votes to his own 638,000, he would have defeated Garamendi.

Garamendi takes issue with any assessment that he would be the insurers’ commissioner. He said after the election that he wants to meet with all factions in the insurance crisis, including Harvey Rosenfield, author of Proposition 103, to hear their ideas.

But Rosenfield was smarting Wednesday from the size of the defeat suffered by the candidate he backed for the Democratic nomination, Collis, and he appeared in no mood to be friendly with Garamendi. In fact, he said, he is going to shift his party registration from Democrat back to independent.

Rosenfield’s associate, national consumer advocate Ralph Nader, meanwhile, was unavailable for comment on the defeat not only of Collis, whom he had supported, but also of gubernatorial candidate Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp.

Ingham of State Farm said he believes Nader is less effective in endorsing candidates than he is in taking stands on issues.