The crash of the insurance companies

A flood of cash from the insurance companies was not enough to sink Referendum 67. Judges will now have the power to award triple damages to people who sue their insurance carriers and win.

The insurers may blame the spray of dollars from the trial lawyers, whose emotional commercials put them on the defensive. That is what trial lawyers do. But they are only able to do it when given an appealing victim, which the insurers had provided. One was Puyallup firefighter David Potter, whose death was the subject of dueling ads. Another was Ethel Adams, whose car was hit when a man tried to run his ex-girlfriend's car off the road, and ran her into Adams instead.

If the reasonable people in the insurance industry want to single out one player for their defeat, they might choose Farmer's Insurance, the company that refused to pay Adams on the preposterous and indefensible argument that her injuries were not accidental.

It was not a typical case, either for the insurance carriers or for Farmer's, but it did happen, and it shows the imbalance of power that exists between the carriers and their customers.

Triple damages is harsh punishment, and we hope judges don't use it often. We hope also that the companies don't give them reason to use it.