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Hawaii's thin insurance market and the relative merits of state-regulated rates versus open competition formed the subject of this January 1996 Price of Paradise broadcast. Linda Gilchrist, executive vice president of AIG Hawaii Insurance Company, argued that states allowing competitive pricing have historically produced lower premiums for consumers, and that Hawaii's regulatory environment discourages insurers from entering or remaining in the market. State Senator Donna Ikeda countered that Hawaii's small, geographically isolated market has never sustained enough competition to make deregulation work, pointing to the decline from hundreds of carriers in the 1970s to fewer than fifteen by the mid-1990s. She argued that whenever companies leave, the legislature is compelled to intervene on behalf of consumers who cannot go without coverage. The discussion drew on the aftermath of Hurricane Iniki and the state of the workers' compensation market as examples of the tensions between the two approaches. The underlying question—whether the state should enforce regulated pricing to protect policyholders or remove restrictions in order to attract more insurers—has not been resolved.
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.
