Senate Bill is bad for homeowners affected by wildfires

Senate Bill is bad for homeowners affected by wildfires

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, a candidate for California attorney general in the upcoming June 5 primary election, promotes himself as a fierce advocate for homeowners against abuses by insurance companies. In his campaign literature, he proclaims that he refuses to accept contributions from the insurance industry.

So why is Jones sponsoring Senate Bill 1291 in the California Legislature, which would make it easier for insurance companies to shortchange homeowners after mass disasters like the 2017 wildfires? And why is one of his biggest campaign contributors a group of lawyers who represent some of the nation's largest insurance companies?

SB 1291 concerns a provision in the California Insurance Code that requires unlicensed out-of-state insurance adjusters who handle claims arising from mass disasters to register with the California Department of Insurance and work under the close supervision of someone who knows California law, which is more protective of homeowners than in most other states. The registration and supervision requirements ensure that out-of-state adjusters won't misinform homeowners about their rights under California law.

Inexplicably, Jones failed to enforce those requirements after the 2017 wildfires. As a result, many of the hundreds of unlicensed out-of-state adjusters who have poured into California to handle wildfire insurance claims have given fire survivors wrong information about their legal rights -- a fact Jones acknowledged months ago. This has caused fire survivors financial and emotional harm that continues to this day.

SB 1291 was introduced in February by State Sen. Bill Dodd, who represents parts of fire-ravaged Sonoma County and Napa County and ought to know better. The bill would gut the Insurance Code's registration and supervision requirements for out-of-state adjusters and allow them to work here without obtaining a California adjuster's license or receiving any training in California insurance law.

So, after failing last year to enforce legal protections for California homeowners from abuses by out-of-state adjusters, Jones now wants to do away with those protections entirely. What can he possibly be thinking?

Perhaps he's thinking about the hefty campaign contributions he's received from a group of 96 insurance industry lawyers at the law firm of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, which represents some of the nation's largest insurance companies such as State Farm and Allstate. During 2013-2017, those 96 lawyers made 214 campaign contributions to Jones, generally in $500 increments, totaling $112,100 -- first to Jones's 2014 campaign for Insurance Commissioner, and now to his 2018 campaign for attorney general.

That's right. The same Dave Jones who proclaims that he refuses to accept campaign contributions from the insurance industry has accepted $112,100 from its lawyers.

Consider this quotation from Jones's candidate statement in the statewide ballot pamphlet for the June 5 primary: "Dave Jones is independent. He refuses to take contributions from the insurance, oil, bail, and tobacco industries." Yet consider this quotation from the website for Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, from whom Jones has taken $112,100: "We are proud of our reputation as dedicated advocates of the insurance industry." Hear the dissonance.

SB 1291 is bad for California homeowners. It would hurt wildfire survivors by legitimizing the insurance industry's practice of sending inadequately trained out-of-state adjusters into California to handle mass insurance claims. Commissioner Jones and Sen. Dodd should cater more to California's homeowners and less to the insurance industry's lawyers. SB 1291 should be scuttled.