Quackenbush Insurance Plan

After reading your editorial (July 28) about Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush’s earthquake insurance authority proposal, I have to wonder what the heck it takes to impress you!

Let’s cut to the bottom line. Insurance is a business; businesses must make profit. If insurance isn’t profitable, insurance companies won’t do business. You didn’t want the insurance coverage de-linked from the homeowners policies, you didn’t like the Fair plans being offered to homeowners, you didn’t like the “no-frills” policies; and now all you can offer for the most original and promising proposal to come along in the history of the industry is that it’s worth watching?

Like the monkey with his fist caught in the jar, you appear unwilling to let go of the peanuts long enough to realize you’ve been trapped in this insurance crisis.

Quackenbush offers a viable, equitable way out of the chasm and all it would take is a newspaper of the stature of The Times to back this proactive, original proposal or to tell Newt Gingrich “next year isn’t soon enough” for the National Disaster Protection Partnership Act, and we’d all be out of the forest. C’mon, folks, this is no time for bench-sitting.

DAVID FRY

Covina

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* In a perfect world, insurance companies can decide which type of coverage they will offer. This is not such a place. For insurance companies to no longer be required to provide earthquake insurance would be a disaster second only in scope to the Northridge earthquake itself. With no coverage, homeowners and businesses would be forced to bear the cost of damage repair, personal property loss, loss of income, living costs and other expenses.

This would force people to live and work in dangerous homes and offices. Bankruptcies could follow, as well as defaulting on mortgage loans. This would send the banking industry and the housing market into a tailspin and put more people on the street. Homeless people don’t buy insurance and so insurance industry income suffers.

Only the insurance industry, which regularly collects our premiums, is in a position to withstand large losses. Besides, earthquakes that cause major damage are, one must admit, more the rare exception than the rule. But insurance companies would rather get rich than take the risks they’re in business to take. They will gladly spend millions on lobbying and advertising campaigns to tell us how poor they are.

Insurance is a game of risk. People will willingly pay reasonable premiums as long as insurance companies don’t turn tail and run. The Assembly shouldn’t let this happen.

DAVID RENSIN

Tarzana