Senate Insurance Panel to Hold Hearing in Valley

Looking to hear firsthand stories of homeowners who believe they were wronged by insurers in the wake of the Northridge earthquake, the state Senate’s Insurance Committee will travel next Wednesday to the San Fernando Valley.

Committee Chairwoman Jackie Speier (D-Daly City) said the 6 p.m. hearing at Granada Hills High School, not far from the quake’s epicenter, will spotlight the true victims of the scandal surrounding embattled Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush: the people.

“It’s what has truly been lost in the focus over the last month, in all this talk about the commissioner,” Speier said. “There are people’s whole lives, homes, businesses that were turned upside-down, and I want to hear from them. We have an obligation to hear from them.”

Quackenbush has become embroiled in controversy after revelations that rather than fining insurance companies billions of dollars for mishandling claims in the aftermath of the 1994 temblor, as members of his office recommended, he encouraged insurers to make “voluntary contributions” to nonprofit foundations he created.

The $12.8 million collected by the foundations was used for a variety of purposes, including commercials featuring Quackenbush and Lakers star Shaquille O’Neal, and donations to organizations to which Quackenbush belonged. Not a penny was distributed to those who suffered financial losses in the quake. Roughly $6 million remains unspent--money that legislators would like to see doled out among earthquake victims.

To that end, Speier also said Wednesday that the Insurance Committee was about to unveil an Internet site where homeowners or business owners who feel their Northridge claims were mishandled can fill out a form detailing their complaint.

Speier said she has received a flood of letters from homeowners with stories to tell--stories such as one from a young man writing on behalf of his mother, who was told by a claims adjuster that her home had little damage, only to learn later it required $75,000 in repairs.

Speier said the hearing, and the Web site, will allow those voices to finally be heard.

“The injury they sustained from the earthquake is one thing, but the injury they sustained from the insurance companies was another,” Speier said. “It’s really astonishing that there is not one dime of restitution that has been provided.”