Auto Insurance

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Making a Difference; Moving In on First Executive

Since taking office in January as California's first elected insurance commissioner, John Garamendi has tackled a variety of complex and politically bruising issues, among them the long-stalled rollback in automobile insurance rates mandated by voters here more than two years ago. But Mr. Garamendi, a 46-year-old former state senator, has now waded into an even more turbulent situation. On Thursday, he directed the California Department of Insurance to seize control of the Executive Life Insurance Company, the largest operating subsidiary of the First Executive Corporation. First Executive's chairman, Fred Carr, had built Executive Life into one of the nation's largest

California Regulator Takes Top Role in Insurance Crisis

John Garamendi, California's first elected Insurance Commissioner, stood before 500 angry policyholders of the failed Executive Life Insurance Company, answering their questions, trying to soothe their fears and getting a warm response when he promised, "I'm working for you." But almost in the next breath, Mr. Garamendi felt compelled to add that "I'm no miracle worker" when it comes to salvaging the wreckage of Executive Life. Policyholders, Mr. Garamendi told the subdued public meeting on Friday, still face the real risk of financial losses in the wake of his seizure of the Los Angeles-based insurer last month. And he repeatedly

Making Bad Risks Good Business

Recently, an executive at State Farm said he could not make money selling auto insurance to speeders, hit-and-run drivers, drunken drivers and other menaces. "We love attitudes like that," said Bruce Marlow, chief operating officer of the Progressive Corporation. "Prejudices like that allow us to succeed." Progressive, the nation's 38th-largest property and casualty insurer, has earned an enviable living by committing what seems to be heresy: It specializes in covering drivers whose coverage has been rejected or canceled by other insurers. These pariahs not only include drivers with blemished records but also people rejected as too old or too young,

Anger Over Car Insurance Rates in Canada

Canada's auto insurers, squeezed by soaring injury claims, falling investment income and slow-moving regulators, are hitting drivers with huge increases in premiums. The public outcry has led politicians across the country to promise mandatory cuts in premiums and other reforms. That has left insurance executives wondering whether their industry, already flooded with red ink, will be the chief casualty, or whether their long campaign for regulatory change is finally paying off. Michael Donoghue, chief executive of the Allstate Insurance Company of Canada, a unit of the Allstate Corporation of Northbrook, Ill., said that while his company ''had posted disastrous results

Safeco car insurance gets on different track

With dozens of employees egging them on, two of Safeco's top executives raced plastic, remote-controlled jeeps around the company cafeteria at lunchtime yesterday. As Mike McGavick and Mike LaRocco manipulated their controllers, the jeeps twirled, whirled and a few times even crashed, in a festive, if not somewhat ironic, introduction of the company's new auto insurance program. Clearly, as one company official put it, this is not your father's Safeco. "This has been a difficult time for the company," said McGavick, the company's president and chief executive, after his jeep lost to LaRocco's. "It's important to have fun, to laugh a little. I