Merritt Farren

Candidate Response - 4 of 8

This article is part of a multi-part series introducing candidates who are running for the position of insurance commissioner in California. Eight candidates responded to three questions posed by Journalist Don Jergler.

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Republican Merritt Farren is a consumer advocate and attorney.

Farren has more than 30 years of experience in business, technology and law. He has held senior roles in several big companies, including Sony Pictures, Disney and Amazon. He wants to bring a technology-centric approach to reinventing insurance regulations, beef up fire protection standards and to eliminate the FAIR Plan.

Q: How do you feel about the direction of the state’s insurance market?

Farren: It’s a full-on disaster—not working for consumers or for insurance companies. It’s also a major contributor to our cost-of-living crisis in California, which is driving people out of our state. We need to strip away the bad body of law and regs that have been built up and introduce a new regulatory scheme that allows good companies that want to serve customers well to innovate, putting tech at the center of their innovation.

I come from two of the world’s most customer-centric companies, Amazon and Disney, that know that companies can do well by doing well by consumers. We need to allow customer-centric insurers to thrive while doing a better job protecting consumers from those who do not put customers first. A tech revolution and simplification of the way insurance contracts are written and offered can do that.

Q: What changes will you make if you are elected to the insurance commissioner post that our readers should know about?

Farren: What changes won’t I make? Our insurance mess was created by elected officials who don’t come from a business background and who haven’t handled tough legal problems in high pressure situations. They have created layer upon layer of laws and regulations that don’t work—that have gotten us where we are today. Ricardo Lara was completely lacking in the necessary expertise to succeed.

I’ll use the skills I learned at Disney, Amazon and Sony Pictures to innovate, taking a stronger lead in using the position’s executive functions to jump in and create clear and immediate results consumers need—and will also get experts together to go line by line in insurance—home, auto, business, workers’ comp, health—to root out the key drivers of increasing insurance cost and to tackle them—to get us all the insurance we need at a price we can afford.

“We need to allow customer-centric insurers to thrive while doing a better job protecting consumers from those who do not put customers first. A tech revolution and simplification of the way insurance contracts are written and offered can do that.”

Merritt Farren

As just one example, I was asked recently by the LA Times what I think about Ricardo Lara’s proposal for standards on smoke damage remediation. My response: Yes, we need those standards, but we needed them 14 months ago. At Amazon or Disney, we would have studied the problem and come out with standards in one week’s time, two weeks max. Not 14 months.

My plan is three part: a tech revolution in insurance to bring new players into the market and get consumers the insurance they need; CAL Reinsure plan to eliminate the need for FAIR Plan; and greater safety for our communities matched with tackling underlying costs driving insurance costs up.

Related article: Reinsurance Program Could Wipe Out Need for Calif. FAIR Plan: Legal Exec

Q: What separates you from the other candidates in the race?

Farren: I am the only candidate who has the senior level legal experience that should be considered mandatory for this post and the senior level business administration and tech experience that should be considered mandatory for this role. None of the other candidates have either.

I’m also the only candidate who has lived through the loss of a home due to community fire and the only candidate who has actively taken on an insurance company and the department of insurance in a rate increase proceeding.

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It is simply not realistic to think that someone without that background will be able to solve our insurance crisis or even make any material progress in doing so. I am also not beholden to any of the insurance interest or big corporate interests that own a number of the other candidates….

I have the experience, the purpose and a specific plan to resolve our insurance crisis.

We are great innovators in California. We can and should bring that innovation to insurance and be the leaders in insurance reform we can and should be.

Compiled by Don Jergler, West Coast Editor of Insurance Journal