4 Initiatives on Insurance May Clog Fall Ballot

Sponsors of an auto insurance initiative backed by a maverick insurance company executive filed 685,000 petition signatures with county clerks Thursday to qualify it for the November ballot, virtually assuring a battle between at least four competing insurance initiatives this fall.

Within minutes after Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) announced that he was filing the signatures, a week earlier than originally planned, sponsors of another initiative backed by the California Trial Lawyers Assn. said they had begun submitting about 650,000 signatures for that initiative.

And within the hour, a spokesman for the insurance industry said signatures for two initiatives would be submitted by the end of the month.

Ample Signatures

Since 372,178 signatures of registered voters are required, the number being submitted in the first two filings seems ample to make the ballot, even if, as usual, some of the signatures are found to be invalid. The insurers are also expected to have ample signatures when they file.

There is real doubt whether a fifth initiative, the “Voter Revolt� package backed by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, will qualify for the ballot. The measure appears to be well short of the number of petitions needed, with about two weeks left until its own submission deadline.

Characteristically, the insurers and the trial lawyers blamed each other Thursday for the impasse in negotiations for a legislative solution, a deadlock that led to the decisions to file the initiatives. Both sides quickly issued statements calling the other side’s position in the negotiations unreasonable.

With the filings of the first initiatives, officials on both sides said chances are virtually nil that the Legislature might still resolve the issue over how to reduce high auto insurance rates in the state this year.

Actually, prospects for a legislative solution had never appeared good, particularly since key lawmakers indicated that they could do nothing unless both of the perennial rival interests, the insurers and the trial lawyers, agreed to make sacrifices of financial interests to bring about lower rates.

State Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys), chairman of the Senate’s insurance committee, vowed again Thursday afternoon to pursue an attempt to push a compromise no-fault insurance measure through the Legislature.

Fails to Get Agreement

But he has failed this week to secure even a limited agreement among the interests as to the measure’s contents, and conceded in an interview that, “We cannot get it through over the opposition of both the trial lawyers and the insurance companies.�

The initiatives submitted to county clerks Thursday contain sharply varying prescriptions for rolling back rates.

Polanco’s initiative, which has drawn about $900,000 in financial backing from Harry Miller, chief executive officer of Coastal Insurance Co., calls for a 50% rollback in bodily injury liability premiums, to be paid for by restricting recoveries of damages for pain and suffering. It adds restrictions on lawyers fees. Miller, whose company insures high-risk drivers, said he does not like the no-fault concept being pushed by the rest of the insurance industry.

The trial lawyers’ initiative calls for a rollback of 20% in overall premiums for good drivers unless the insurance companies can convince the state Insurance Department that a reduction is not justified. The department would be given much more authority to regulate insurance rates.

Banks Put Into Business

This initiative also would end the insurance industry’s antitrust exemptions and put the banks into the insurance business. The California Banking Assn. also backs it.

One insurance industry initiative calls for a no-fault system under which persons would be reimbursed for accident damages by their own insurance companies and would have their rights to sue and recover damages for pain and suffering restricted. The other initiative would sharply cut back on lawyers’ contingency fees.

In another development Thursday, the state Supreme Court decided 5 to 2 not to hear an appeal of a state Court of Appeal decision knocking out an early version of the insurers’ no-fault initiative because it violated a constitutional ban on initiatives that deal with more than one subject.