Assembly Panel Supports Laws Backed by Insurers

In a victory for the insurance industry, the Assembly Insurance Committee on Tuesday rejected legislation that would have repealed a series of industry-sponsored laws that critics say have watered down provisions of Proposition 103, the initiative designed to reduce premiums.

There was one vote for the measure, AB 3445 by Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), and three against, with several abstentions. Margolin promised to have the bill reconsidered at a later date.

Proposition 103 was approved by voters in 1988. Among other things, it required insurance rate rollbacks of 20%. It also required the state insurance commissioner to review proposed rate increases before they take effect.

Margolin, a candidate for insurance commissioner, maintains that his bill would close loopholes that have eroded the proposition’s intent.

A spokesman for the Assn. of California Insurance Companies, Jeff Fuller, called Margolin’s bill a “plainly pitiful attempt to preclude the Legislature from perfectly valid attempts to interpret and implement the fundamental will of the electorate expressed through the initiative process.”