Fire Victims Press Wilson on Insurance Rights

Policyholders who have complained of insurance company delays in paying claims from the Oakland and Altadena fires brought pressure Wednesday on Gov. Pete Wilson to sign the so-called “Homeowner’s Bill of Rights” sponsored by the Democratic candidate for insurance commissioner, state Sen. Art Torres of Los Angeles.

At two news conferences, with Torres at their side, the homeowners complained that the governor has declined to meet with them to discuss the merits of the measure. It would mandate that all homeowner policies be written in uncomplicated language and require companies to go to court to justify questions they seek to ask policyholders under oath.

Torres, meanwhile, said he is willing to give credit to Wilson for being “a captive of consumers” rather than “a captive of the insurance industry, as are so many Republicans,” if only the Republican governor will sign the bill.

In a full-page ad appearing in today’s national editions of the New York Times, homeowner and consumer backers of the measure exhort Wilson not to “turn (his) back on 7 million homeowners!” Wilson, the ad states, “has a chance to rise above the inertia of partisan politics” by signing the Torres measure.

A spokesman for Wilson said Wednesday that the governor has not yet made up his mind whether to sign.

Torres’ Republican opponent in the insurance commissioner’s race, Assemblyman Charles W. Quackenbush (R-Cupertino), voted against the measure, and a spokesman, Greg Butler, said the assemblyman considers it “a bad bill . . . because it would encourage fraud” against the companies.

At one of Wednesday’s news conferences, in Pasadena, a homeowner who lost his dwelling to the Altadena fire last year said he got some insight into Quackenbush’s thinking while attending a June 8 legislative hearing on the bill in Sacramento. Bert Tibbet, who has not yet secured an insurance settlement on his loss, said that after the session ended, Quackenbush “clapped insurance lobbyists on the back and congratulated them” for opposing Torres’ bill.

Butler responded, “If the guy’s got a tape, let him produce the tape” to verify such an incident. Otherwise, he declined comment.

But, Butler charged, it is inappropriate for Torres to accuse Quackenbush of being a captive of insurers. He pointed out that Tuesday night a Los Angeles law firm that has represented insurance companies was host of a $250-per-person fund-raiser for Torres.

The firm, Buchalter, Nemer, Fields & Younger, has former Insurance Commissioner Roxani Gillespie in its office, Butler noted. Gillespie, a Republican, championed insurance industry causes.

At the reception Torres said that despite the law firm’s fund raising on his behalf, he does not agree with the insurance industry on all issues.