This Is a Pocketbook Issue for Everyone : For State Insurance Commissioner: Bannister

In the last general election, the most heatedly debated initiatives on the California ballot all involved insurance reform. Just one indication of how frustratingly complex an issue it can be is the fact that the only insurance reform measure voters passed in 1988, Proposition 103, is still stalled in the courts two years later.

But Proposition 103 initiated one change that is coming to pass: the election of an insurance commissioner, previously an appointee named by the governor. Next to this year’s gubernatorial election, it’s unlikely any race on the statewide ballot will generate as much interest among California voters. Insurance is a pocketbook issue for everyone.

Consider: Despite Proposition 103, the cost of automobile coverage remains appallingly high, especially in urban areas. Thousands of this state’s residents are one major injury or illness away from going broke because they can’t get health insurance. And there are scary signs that some of the life insurance policies Californians purchased in good faith may be financially shaky because the companies underwriting them played as fast and loose with their investments as some defunct savings and loans did with theirs.

Clearly, whoever holds the job as California’s first elected insurance commissioner will be on the spot. Californians will be counting on him to regulate a secretive and powerful industry as openly and even-handedly as possible. In The Times’ judgment, the best person for what’s sure to be a very tough job is Republican Wes Bannister, an Orange County insurance agent and member of the Huntington Beach City Council.

Bannister, who has agreed to put his agency into a blind trust if he is elected, knows the insurance industry, yet he is not beholden to it. As an independent agent, Bannister does not represent one company, but acts on behalf of his clients with several. It would be pushing things too far to argue, as Bannister does, that he is a consumer advocate. But his knowledge of the industry, and his ability to critically evaluate its weaknesses, is impressive.

Bannister’s Democratic opponent, state Sen. John Garamendi of Walnut Grove is better-funded and has wider name recognition, having run for both governor and state controller in the past. But Garamendi’s lack of hands-on knowledge about insurance is reflected in a tendency to answer specific questions in generalities.

Garamendi tries to emphasize the independent stands he has taken in the Legislature against both the insurance industry and another key interest group that plays a major role whenever insurance reform comes up: trial attorneys. He has taken no contributions from trial lawyers’ political action committees or from insurance company executives or agents in this campaign, but that’s a stance he can easily afford. A 16-year veteran of Sacramento, Garamendi has all the fund-raising connections of a savvy politician, raising more than $1 million for the primary and almost half as much for the general election.

So while we don’t question Garamendi’s sincerity in running for insurance commissioner, we have concluded that voters would be better served by Wes Bannister.