Jones Wins Second Term as California Insurance Commissioner
November 5, 2014 by Thomas Harman
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California Insurance Commissioner David Jones has been re-elected for a second term, defeating Republican challenger Sen. Ted Gaines.
Jones won 56.3% of the vote in defeating Gaines, a member of the state Senate who serves as vice chairman of the state Senate Standing Committee on Insurance. Jones and Gaines advanced to the general election by easily defeating Peace & Freedom candidate Nathalie Hrizi in the open primary.In the primary, Jones captured 53% of the vote to Gaines’ 41%, and Jones improved upon that total in the general election. Jones captured large margins in most coastal areas and in San Francisco.
Jones has been a prominent member in the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. He is part of many task forces, including the life actuarial task force and the principles-based reserving task force. The latter was formed in part to address concerns raised by Jones that states would lack the resources to make principles-based reserving for life insurers function properly.
Jones’ stance on principles-based reserving will be a major factor in determining whether principles-based reserving becomes a national standard for accreditation purposes, as 42 jurisdictions covering 75% of the premiums nationwide must ratify. California and New York have both been critical of principles-based reserving and together they come close to preventing the 75% premium threshold requirement.
Jones had a huge edge in campaign contributions, racking up $1.6 million during 2014, according to filings with the Secretary of State. Gaines reported $179,000 in contributions to his campaign during 2014, receiving funds from the Association of California Life & Health Insurance Political Action Committee, the Personal Life Insurance Federation of California PAC and from Allstate Insurance, according to records filed with the Secretary of State.
Gaines, of Roseville, is the co-owner of Gaines Insurance. He campaigned against the implementation of the state-run health insurance exchange, Covered California, and against Proposition 45, which would give the insurance commissioner the right to restrict health insurance rate increases.
Gaines campaigned on creating increased insurance market competition, with an eye toward driving down costs and protecting consumers from unfair rate increases and bad business practices. He opposed Proposition 45, saying that further intervention in the insurance market by the commissioner’s office would prove harmful to consumers.
Jones — as well as others voted into commissioners’ positions Nov. 4 — are those with whom the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America believes it can work, said Paul Blume, PCI senior vice president, state government relations. He said Jones and California have already dealt with the ride-sharing issues that will be prominent on other commissioners’ and state lawmaker agendas next spring.
Jones has spent much of his time concentrating on battling health rate increases. Two weeks before the election, he punctuated an announcement by Anthem that it would reduce its fourth-quarter small group health insurance rate from 9.8% to 7.8% by saying that the reduced rate remains excessive and continued to call for a much lower one (Best’s News Service, Oct. 24, 2014).
Blume said he hopes Jones becomes more involved in global regulatory convergence issues during his new term.
