California Department Of Insurance

Health insurers have always known a lot about their customers, but the customers can't always say the same about their insurers. That's about to change. The California Department of Insurance today plans to announce a new "healthcare report card" program for six of the state's largest preferred provider organizations, or PPOs. The reports will include information on quality of care and patient satisfaction so that consumers can compare plans.

California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner on Wednesday named as his top lawyer a partner from a high-powered international law firm that has long battled Proposition 103, the landmark insurance initiative passed by voters in 1988. Poizner appointed Adam Cole, a 46-year-old graduate of Harvard Law School, as general counsel, heading a Department of Insurance staff of 80 attorneys. Cole is a partner in a firm that has a long history of representing State Farm Casualty Insurance Co.

One of the state's largest bail-bond companies has been indicted on 42 felony charges as part of a major statewide investigation of alleged corruption in the industry, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said Tuesday. The charges handed down in November by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury against San Jose-based Bad Boys Bail Bonds include perjury, forgery and offering false evidence.

French insurer MAAF defaulted in a civil lawsuit in which it was accused of defrauding the state of California of billions of dollars in the purchase of Executive Life Insurance Co., spokesmen for both sides said. Norman Williams, a spokesman for the California Department of Insurance, said the state planned to ask a jury to order MAAF to pay a share of $3.7 billion in damages claimed in the suit, which also targets the French government and French bank Credit Lyonnais.

California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi said Monday that he had ended a six-month search for a chief executive to run the state agency that oversees more than $1 billion in assets from failed insurance companies. Garamendi named David E. Wilson to run the Conservation and Liquidation Office, a semi-governmental organization that helps the insurance commissioner rehabilitate financially shaky insurers or sell off their assets to pay policyholder claims. Wilson, 57, of Golden, Colo.

Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi sued California's government-run workers' compensation carrier Monday, escalating a long-running feud over Department of Insurance efforts to regulate the $7.6-billion entity.

Facing conflict-of-interest concerns in the state Senate, Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi has withdrawn his nominee to head a state agency that oversees more than $1 billion in assets from failed insurance companies. Garamendi pulled the nomination of Fred A. Buck to the $260,000-a-year job as head of the Department of Insurance's Conservation and Liquidation Office after the Senate Rules Committee said it would take no action on the appointment.

Labor unions plan to ask the Legislature to cap workers' compensation insurance rates next year if insurers fail to substantially cut the premiums they charge businesses. "Organized labor is going to be watching very closely the insurance company filings, and what they file will determine their fate in the Legislature," said Angie Wei, legislative director of the California Labor Federation, during a Department of Insurance rate hearing in San Francisco.

A family that operated a bail bond agency that represented high-risk offenders was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of embezzlement, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy. Adnan "Dan" Yousef, who is listed in an ad as owner of American Liberty Bail Bonds in Whittier, was arrested at his office, and his wife and three sons were picked up at their La Habra home, said Fullerton police spokesman Steve Matson.

A federal judge ruled that a former top California Insurance Department official cannot have the state pay for his attorneys' fees and personal compensation for time spent dealing with department matters after he resigned. William W. Palmer was a top aide to former state Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush. He filed a claim with the state seeking $168,000.