What follows is some text from a summary from the Property & Casualty Insurance Association of America meeting with Karen Weldin Stewart. The PCIAA is a membership/lobbying organization that looks out for the interests of insurance companies. Read along with me and see if you think that the relationship that Weldin-Stweart is trying to build with the industry is appropriate.
PCI Meets with Commissioner-elect Stewart
On December 10, 2008, PCI members had an opportunity to meet Commissioner-elect Karen Weldin Stewart. Stewart provided an update about her transition and expected issues when she takes office. Her swearing in is January 6, 2009, starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington. Most members appreciated the openness and interest she has for developing ties and relationships with the property casualty insurance industry.
Ignore for a second the fact that KWS is even meeting with this group that represents tha companies that she is supposed to be regulating (remind me again, didn’t people get all fired up because Gene Reed hung out with these folks?) but look at that paragraph again. Her swearing in is January 6th at the Hotel Dupont? And who is paying for that grand swearing in? My guess is the insurance companies because KWS does not have any money left over from the campaign and the state does not pay for that sort of thing.
We opened the meeting with a general comment that Delaware is a small state with high costs and we believe it is important to recognize that changes, however, small they may be, have an added cost to the system. Stewart stated that she wants to have an open administration and use the insurance industry as an additional information source. She stated that she has her transition team looking at issue and would appreciate comments and views about how the department is operating. She stated further that she plans to have advisory committees to help her on key issues and would welcome companies’ participation in these groups.
Again, it is totally inappropriate for this meeting to even be taking place, but Weldin Stewart finds it necessary to throw open the doors of the Insurance Commissioner’s office to the companies that make money by not paying claims.
One member pointed out that in our industry, Delaware has high PIP limits and that this may one of the reasons for high costs in Delaware. We stated that a reduction in these types of high mandatory limits in PIP may help reduce costs. Another point was that there is a need to speed up approvals in rate filings. It was commented that she may also want to seek information from the department about how many filings there are outstanding.
This is some insider insurance company talk that I take to mean “Your office needs to help us make money.”
We discussed workers compensation issues. Stewart stated that she has met with the Rating Bureau and has an informal agreement that the Rating Bureau will provide the department with filings 2 months ahead of any approval timeframe to help better coordinate any possible implementation of a filing. We mentioned the recent Order by the department mandating a rate reduction for a period of 4-5 years (for Filing No. 0806). She stated that she will look at this issue.
Okay. This is huge. I checked around and any insurance person reading this just had a profit-gasm because this seemingly innocuous statement that “We mentioned the recent Order by the department mandating a rate reduction for a period of 4-5 years (for Filing No. 0806). She stated that she will look at this issue…” refers to an order that instructed the insurance carriers to return to policyholders the windfall profits they had made from the imposition of the medical fee schedule for workers compensation insurance. So KWS is basically saying she can fix that for them.
As to her staffing, she commented that Elliott Jacobson will be her chief of staff. He is 65 years old and comes from Washington, D.C. He has government affairs experience in New York, Illinois, and Washington, D.C. She is also considering candidates for deputy insurance commissioner. She pointed out that she is not trying to have a political office, but a professional one. She pointed out several of her transition team members and the qualities they bring to her review.
Read “professional” there to mean “industry friendly” and I think you have it. Although the Insurance industry paying for KWS’s grand swearing in cerimony will probably make the headlines, the real story for me here is that Weldin Stewart she thinks the Department has been too hard on the insurance industry and she is going to fix that.
It is her theme, and if she was more forthright in her campaign material as she was in these meetings and in her press release annoucing her transition team when she wrote, “The insurance industry is not, as some would have it, the adversary of the consumer. On the contrary, with diligent regulation and enforcement, the industry can and will be an important safety net for our citizens.” – I seriously doubt she would have won.