Group Names Former Ill. Insurance Director Vice President
Insured Pals,
Just a quick one today. This press release tells us that a former Illinois insurance regulator is about to join an Illinois insurance industry trade group.
What’s usual about that? Nothing. And that’s the problem.
If there is a revolving door that whirls as swiftly and efficiently as the one between insurance regulators and regulated, it must only be at Katz’s on Free Pastrami Day(1).
“ The Des Plaines, Ill.-based Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) has announced that Deirdre Manna, former acting director of the Illinois Division of Insurance, will join PCI Dec. 4 as vice president of industry and regulatory affairs.
Prior to joining PCI, Manna served as a government relations professional for Dykema Gossett, PLLC in Chicago, where she worked with all branches of government. As acting director of the Illinois Division of Insurance, Manna was responsible for regulating the state’s insurance industry’s market behavior and financial solvency. She led a department with a budget of $33 million and a staff of 336.”
A 1996 Money Magazine investigation found that 100 former state commissioners (the guys at the top) were then working in the insurance industry; that 15 percent of state legislators on committees overseeing insurance were either insurance agents, executives or otherwise connected to the industry. In Mississippi and Louisiana the figures were 40 percent and 38 percent, respectively. Why am I relying on a 10-year old magazine story? Did I mention no one covers this business?
Want something newer? Robert Wooley, Louisiana’s insurance commissioner during Katrina, resigned in February to take a job with a law firm that lobbies the state legislature on behalf of insurance clients. In 2004, South Carolina Commissioner Ernest Csiszar stepped down and resigned as head of the regulators’ trade group, National Association of Insurance Commissioners, to become head of the industry’s trade group, Property Casualty Insurers Association.
I’ll leave it there. No, actually, I won’t. Folks, this is a system that has lost its way. And, yes (sigh), I will post any defense of this meshegas. I especially want to hear the one about how you need people who understand insurance. Seriously, I’m open to counter-argument, but obviously deeply skeptical. The hopelessly snarled regulatory culture is Reason #139 that state regulation is a 19th Century relic that, as a policy matter, we can’t afford, and frankly, as an industry matter, they can’t afford.
(1) Ok, literal heads, there’s no revolving door, but there is a turnstyle.
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2006/11/20/74448.htm
November 21st, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Non-inflamatory question:
Don’t a lot of jounalists become PR writers in their field of expertise? Is this similar? Or is it only similar when it converges with government?
November 21st, 2006 at 2:10 pm
The problem with overly-insular regulation can be illustrated by the following: My wife and I have a friend who used to be a nurse. As I understand it, he learned a lot of his nursing skills during his time as a Navy Seal, but he continued to nurse for a while after his return to civilian status. One night at a party the topic of shitty doctors came up (In the circles I travel the ‘bad’ doctor is a frequent problem, but please don’t take this as a global indictment). My ex-nurse friend recounted a why-I-left-nursing moment he had while still working. As he told it, he was assisting a doctor who was examining a patient. During the exam the doctor blew his nose. A bit later, the doctor gave the patient an injection and then wiped off the injection wound with his recently-used snotrag. The patient asked the doc if that was a safe thing to do. “of course” the doc replied with an offhand contempt, “it’s only water”. Neither the patient or the nurse had an effective way of bringing any censure to bear upon this guy.
Now I’m not gonna say there is no place for following the guide of an expert authority. The thing is, it can’t be allowed to be absolute.
November 22nd, 2006 at 5:35 am
BA,
Love you. Very little inflames me, and certainly nothing critical of journalism. I am, however, a pro-journalism partisan, at least in its idealized state, so you have to discount this a bit. The difference with insurance is one of both degree and kind. As a practical matter (degree), the street between journalism and PR is basically one way. You leave; you don’t come back. In real life, yes, journos could and do try to cultivate companies and industries with an eye toward later employment. I would say that happens infrequently, and is a much smaller problem than journos accepting the assumptions and discourse of the industry in order to 1. fit in, 2. not cause trouble and 3. because they’re not very smart. The difference in kind is more important. The insurance department is the government. As important as the private sector is, there is nothing like the government, having covered both. Its coercive, police, taxing, spending and rule-marking powers are unlike anything anyone else has. Remember, the most a newspaper can do is write about something.
mike a: Love your stuff, too. The problem of medical discipline is a huge and, guess what, has a big impact on medical malpractice insurance. From what I can tell, and this is outrageous supposition on my part, the docs and insurers have made an implicit deal: The doctor organizations won’t attack insurers for usurious malpractice rates ($200,000/year in some cases) while the insurers won’t press for tougher medical discipline to prevent the medical injuries that cause malpractice suits. Kind of like the Molotov-Ribbentroff Non-Agression Pact. Instead, they both blame plaintiffs’ lawyers and “runaway juries.”
Thanks again.