Insurers at a hearing in San Francisco today blasted California Commissioner John Garamendi saying he was overreaching with a second regulatory effort to prevent insurers from canceling homeowners' policies because they file a claim.

Sam Sorich, president of Association of California Insurance Companies said the Department of Insurance's proposed new homeowners regulations exceeded the agency's authority to adopt standards that involve underwriting practices.

Mr. Garamendi announced the regulations in April aimed at discouraging the practice known as "use it [insurance] and lose it." An earlier attempt by Mr. Garamendi to craft such a regulation was knocked down by the courts after an insurance industry argument that he lacked authority to make such rules.

Back when he announced his latest effort Mr. Garamendi said insurers were penalizing consumers for using their coverage. "It is a reprehensible practice, and I will see that these costly and discriminatory claims games are stopped," he promised.

Nicole Mahrt, a spokesperson for the American Insurance Association in Sacramento, said at the time Mr. Garamendi appeared to be "re-approaching the issue after the courts have decided he does not have the authority."

In late February, the California Third Appellate District Court of Appeal upheld a Superior Court ruling that knocked down emergency regulations by the commissioner that would have restricted the consideration of prior loss histories in underwriting and rating homeowners' insurance.

Specifically, the new regulations would require an insurer to detail any information from a claims database report that is used to reject an application for coverage. It would require informing potential policyholders of all exclusions and take steps to verify claims database information used to rate policies.

Additionally, insurers would have to notify policyholders of any changes to their rating or underwriting guidelines that could have a negative effect on the policyholder if they file a claim, and file an annual report to the state Department of Insurance with the details of any instance in which they apply "use-it-and-lose-it" underwriting or deny eligibility where the potential policyholder has filed a claim in the past.

"We may not be able to issue an outright ban, but I will make sure that homeowners know what the risks are before they become victims of a use-it-and-lose-it-insurer," Mr. Garamendi said.

Mr. Sorich said today that the newest regulations fail to meet the state's Administrative Procedure Act's criteria for regulations because they lack "the requisite authority and clarity, and the department has not demonstrated that the regulations are necessary."

The ACIC president said that the proposed regulations also are unfriendly to consumers because they would slow down the normal process of issuing insurance policies.

Mr. Sorich noted that existing laws already require homeowners insurance companies to provide specific disclosures when policies are cancelled or not renewed.

The Legislature chose not to mandate disclosure of all circumstances that may result in cancellation or nonrenewal before those actions are taken, he said.

Provisions in the proposed regulations that seek to restrict insurers' use of claims information run counter to the earlier Court of Appeal's ruling" Mr. Sorich said.

The Association of California Insurance Companies is an affiliate of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) and represents more than 300 property-casualty insurance companies doing business in California.

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Insurers Hit Garamendi Attack On Use-It-Lose-It

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