California Insurance Commissioner Faces New Accusation Of Favoring Insurers

In the weeks and months following his 2018 election as the top insurance regulator in California, Ricardo Lara began meeting with and accepting political contributions from the very companies he had just been elected to oversee.

Lara returned much of the campaign money and issued a public apology after The San Diego Union-Tribune reported on the behavior.

But now, weeks after winning a second term, the state insurance commissioner is again being accused of working to the benefit of insurers rather than on behalf of ratepayers.

According to Consumer Watchdog, the nonprofit group that wrote the 1980s ballot measure that made the insurance commissioner an elective office and imposed other sweeping industry reforms, Lara’s office wrongly approved a $268 million rate hike for GEICO insurance.

‘The Department of Insurance failed to comply with rules and procedures dictated by the voters that authorize public participation in the rate-review process,’ Consumer Watchdog attorney Daniel L. Sternberg said.