Earthquake Insurance

Your Jan. 6 editorial appropriately highlights the need for Insurance Commissioner Charles Quackenbush and the Legislature to move resolutely in addressing the earthquake insurance problem, and its direct effects on the availability of homeowners insurance.

I disagree, however, with your implication that the insurance commissioner’s call for “delinkage” of earthquake insurance and homeowners insurance indicates a payoff to the insurance industry that contributed heavily to his campaign. It is perfectly appropriate for delinkage to be placed on the table for discussion, in combination with a whole series of steps which must be taken.

The Times also criticizes the new commissioner for his announced intention to drop the Garamendi proposal to use the FAIR Plan to offer “monoline” earthquake insurance. But in a letter to John Garamendi in September, I too questioned whether his monoline proposal was the appropriate solution. That Quackenbush has since elected to drop the monoline earthquake policy offered through the FAIR Plan does not mean that he is blindly doing the bidding of the insurance industry. Reasonable people throughout the political spectrum can certainly disagree whether monoline--as opposed to earthquake coverage included in a total residential insurance package--is the way to go.

In addressing the earthquake insurance crisis, the Legislature must not lose sight of the predicament of individual homeowners whose coverage has been or will be canceled by insurers anxious to contract their earthquake exposure. And there must be some meaningful pooling of earthquake risks, probably using the California FAIR Plan to offer basic earthquake insurance.

I have already introduced legislation this session: AB 13, which takes up the discussion of a comprehensive solution to the earthquake insurance problem where we left off last August when I served as chairwoman of the Assembly Insurance Committee. I am convinced that a reasonable compromise can be achieved this session, provided legislators can rise above the partisan gridlock which presently saps the Legislature of its focus and energy.

JUANITA M. McDONALD

D-Carson