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Hawaii's auto insurance system and the choice between two competing legislative proposals formed the focus of this March 1996 Price of Paradise broadcast. Carolyn Fujioka, director of public affairs for State Farm Insurance in Hawaii, supported a Senate bill that would establish pure no-fault coverage, raising the threshold at which a claimant could sue from eleven thousand to two hundred fifty thousand dollars and removing what she identified as the primary cost driver: unnecessary litigation. Janice Kim, a consumer law attorney, argued instead for a House bill that would abolish no-fault altogether and return Hawaii to a tort system in which fault always determines liability. Kim contended that dollar thresholds have consistently failed to contain costs in states that have tried them, and that Hawaii, despite carrying the nation's highest threshold at the time, paid the second-highest premiums in the country. Both guests agreed that the current hybrid system is not working. Legislators from both chambers called in to outline the competing bills. The question before the legislature is which direction to take: eliminating most lawsuits through expanded no-fault coverage, or restoring full liability through the tort system.
Transcript
Read or download the full transcript (.txt). Speaker labels were assigned automatically and may contain errors.
Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
