Insurance Nominee: Light, Please

The turmoil in the wake of Chuck Quackenbush, the disgraced former state insurance commissioner, has left the agency in need of a steady, honest hand on the tiller. Gov. Gray Davis has aimed at exactly that with his nomination of longtime Judge Harry Low as commissioner.

Low, who spent a quarter-century on the state bench and the last several years as a private arbitrator, often in insurance cases, is described by those who know him as a man of great integrity and intelligence. In the words of Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), he is “exactly what we need for this position.”

It’s also heartening that Low says one of his first actions will be to examine the deals that Quackenbush made with companies accused of mishandling claims from 1994’s Northridge earthquake.

Low is likely to easily win confirmation by the Legislature, but it would be a public good to know more about his record as a private arbitrator. He should at least ask the agency that employed him as a private judge to give legislators a summary of insurance-related cases in which he reached a judgment, though confidentiality agreements pose a problem. Knowledge of Low’s record could provide a higher degree of confidence in his confirmation.

When he takes office, Low should signal a new way of doing business by declaring that he will make public all future reports on insurer conduct; if Quackenbush had done that with the Northridge documents, the public would never have tolerated the sweetheart settlements that eventually got him into such trouble.

Along the same lines, Low should reinstate whistle-blower Cindy Ossias, the commission lawyer who leaked the Northridge documents, known as market conduct surveys, to the Assembly Insurance Committee. Ossias, still on administrative leave, deserves to get her career back. It was a mistake for the Legislature to allow such documents to be held confidential in the first place.

The enduring lesson of the Quackenbush scandal is that secrecy is the good pal of special interests. By opening his own relevant arbitration history, Low would do his first service to consumers who have been so ill served for so long.