Insurance Dept. Changes

Your very fine writer, Kenneth Reich, produced an article headlined “State’s Insurance Department Under Pressure to Change” (Nov. 25), sections of which are both outdated and incorrect.

Had Reich given us a call to properly update his yellowing notes on the story, we might have prevented this misinformation from reaching the public. Much of his criticism of the department is obviously based on reports issued last spring by Consumers Union and the auditor general--definitely old and biased material.

Never in the department’s history has there been such radical change as we’ve seen during this year. We have stepped up our consumer efforts and increased staff in that area; complaint backlogs have declined significantly; all consumer complaint files are automated and easily accessed by a toll-free number.

And where did Reich get the idea that our people monitoring market conduct are part-time? Our full-time staff handling the market conduct work has increased 25% from a year ago. Our full-time staff handling company rate examinations has almost doubled from two years ago as has the number of companies we can examine at one time.

Of course, for simple lack of space we cannot rebut Reich point by point. Nor can we counter those shady grays of copy--an adjective here, an adverb there--which certainly have a negative impact on the reader.

But let’s be candid about this. The “much-maligned” Department of Insurance is doing a remarkable turnaround with the resources at hand. Why not applaud us for an honest effort rather than berate us with yesterday’s facts and figures?

ROXANI M. GILLESPIE

Insurance Commissioner

San Francisco