NU Online News Service, April 11, 2:41 p.m.EST

Two California medical-malpractice insurers have agreed to lowertheir premiums, a decision the state-insurance commissioner sayswill lower costs to healthcare providers in the state by $4million.

State-insurance commissioner Dave Jones used the occasion torenew his call for authority to stop health-insurance companiesfrom raising premiums excessively.

Currently, Jones has the authority to reject excessive medicalmalpractice, life and property and casualty insurance rates throughProposition 103.

But, according to insurance department officials, he lacks theauthority to regulate health-insurance rates, as was exhibited inthe April 1 decision by Aetna to follow through on a decision toraise health premiums on small employers despite Jones' findingthat the rate hikes were excessive.

In announcing the decision of the medmal insurers to reducerates, Jones again voiced support for A.B. 52, state legislation heis sponsoring that would give him authority to reject rate-hikerequests he considers excessive.

“It defies reason that the insurance commissioner has the legalauthority under Proposition 103 to reduce excessivemedical-malpractice-insurance rates for doctors, dentists, andother medical providers, but I don't have the authority to rejectexcessive health insurance or HMO rate increases for ordinaryCalifornians, their families, or their businesses,” Jones said.

“We need to extend Proposition 103 to health insurance and HMOsso that we can reject excessive health insurance and HMO rateincreases that are devastating Californians and California'sbusinesses,” he said.

The decisions by Medical Protection Company (MedPro) and NCMICInsurance Company were announced by Jones, who said MedPro agreedto reduce rates 11.9 percent and NCMIC 7.25 percent.

MedPro is the fifth largest medical malpractice writer inCalifornia; NCMIC specializes in writing medical malpracticeinsurance for chiropractors.

The total premium savings from the companies' decisions totalnearly $4 million annually, Jones says. MedPro will implement itsrate reduction on June 1 and NCMIC on July 1 of this year.

The two join three other insurers—NORCAL Mutual, The DentistsInsurance Company and The Medical Insurance Exchange ofCalifornia's physicians and surgeons program—that have loweredrates recently due to actions taken by Jones.

He said the total savings to medical providers in Californiawill be nearly $23 million.

Last year, Jones required medmal insurers to submit rate filingsto the Department of Insurance to justify their current rates.After a review of those filings, Jones called for the ratereductions.