View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2002/04/15/15835.htm
Holly Bakke, New Jersey’s newly appointed Banking and Insurance Commissioner, is reportedly seeking a compromise with State Farm Indemnity Co., the state’s largest automobile insurer, before July 1, when a decision is due on the terms for the company’s withdrawal from the NJ auto market.
According to a report in the Bergen Record, carried on the PIANJ web site, Bakke faces the dilemma of coming up with a solution that’s acceptable to State Farm and other insurers, such as AIG, which also plan to pull out of the NJ market, without further significant increases in auto insurance premiums, which are already the highest in the country.
She would also need the approval of state legislators and the governor for any compromise solution. While everyone agrees that NJ’s auto insurance system is badly in need of reform, no one seems to be able to come up with a workable solution, but the prospect of State Farm’s imminent departure would deprive nearly 20 percent of the state’s drivers of its coverage, may serve as an incentive to finally solve the problem
bakke certainly has enough experience to tackle it. She served as a deputy insurance commissioner in the early 1980’s, and for the last 13 years she’s been the executive director of the state-run association that pays the claims of insolvent insurance companies.
However, as the article noted, “No state insurance commissioner in three decades has had much luck figuring out how to untangle the mess that has become New Jersey’s auto insurance system.”|”nj, insurance, commissioner, faces, state, farm, deadline