There’s another insurance commissioner in the news this week as WSJ Editorial Board member Holman W Jenkins JR launched into California’s Dave Jones in his opinion column over the weekend.
At the end of last year, Jones flew to the Paris climate conference. When he came back, he hit the insurance industry with a number of demands – divest yourselves of any coal holdings and account for your investment holdings in companies that derive 30% or more of their income from coal, oil or other fossil fuels.
Jones went on to explain that companies that don’t divest their holdings of assets will be named and shamed. He also wants companies to sign a pledge that they will “refrain from future investments in thermal coal.”
Whatever you feel about greenhouse gasses and global warming, this pressure on the industry ties in nicely to the fact that Jones is running to be California’s Attorney General in 2018. Kamala Harris, the incumbent AG is expected to vacate the role in order to take a seat in the U.S. Senate after a long anti oil-industry crusade. California has long lead the nation with green policies and it would appear that Jones thinks he has a vote winner with insurer bashing.
The Association of California Insurance Agencies have already said that insurers should be allowed to manage their investments as they like but as
Jenkins’ WSJ column points out – this is America’s most populous state and as an insurance lawyer told the WSJ, Mr Jones has power over a lot of things that are important to his clients. They will probably do what they can to follow his demands.
Visit the California Department of Insurance site and the first facts you can find in ‘about us’ are about the commissioner – not his department.(incidentally he also smiles benignly at visitors at the top of the menu bar on pretty much every page) And the font used for his name? Bigger than that used for his department.
Which adds to the concern – is a politician using our industry as a stepping stone to something that he thinks is more important really the right person to be overseeing the nations largest market of an industry that is so important for the country as a whole?
