Cindy Ossias is an American lawyer. In the early months of the year 2000, while serving as a long-time senior lawyer for the California Department of Insurance (CDI), Ossias leaked confidential documents exposing the allegedly illegal and corrupt activities of Chuck Quackenbush, then Insurance Commissioner of California and head of CDI, to the state legislative consultant investigating the Commissioner's actions. In 2004, Ossias also took a seat as Director for California government watchdog group Californians Aware.
In 1983, Ossias graduated from Golden Gate University School of Law. She practiced criminal defense and family law in San Francisco as a sole practitioner before entering public service as a staff attorney in 1986 at the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board.
Ossias joined the CDI in January 1990. In 1991, she was appointed by then-Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi to a special task force that wrote the state's regulations governing unfair claims practices by insurance companies. During her tenure at the agency, Ossias served as project manager and lead counsel for CDI's activities following various natural catastrophes, including the Oakland firestorm of 1991, the Southern California wildfires of 1993, and the Northridge earthquake of 1994.
She also acted as lead counsel and project manager in disciplinary cases against large insurance companies such as Allstate Insurance, State Farm Insurance, Mercury Insurance Group, UnumProvident Insurance Group (now Unum), and HealthMarkets, Inc. (an insurance holding company).
In early 2000, Ossias photocopied confidential CDI documents, supplied them to the California State Assembly Insurance oversight committee, and disclosed that fact to the California Highway Patrol. In testimony before the State Assembly committee (which provided her with complete immunity from criminal prosecution), Ossias detailed how CDI's upper management had suppressed findings of insurer wrongdoing after the Northridge earthquake of 1994 and instructed her to shred documents.
The reports detailed claims-handling violations by State Farm, Allstate, and 20th Century Insurance, used by Quackenbush to reach settlements with those insurers requiring them to contribute millions of dollars to foundations created by the commissioner.
In return, Quackenbush agreed not to fine the companies or to finalize the reports, allowing the firms to donate $12.8million to private foundations he had created, in lieu of fines of up to $3billion – the amount recommended by staff based on the egregious findings contained in the confidential documents Ossias felt compelled to disclose to the legislative oversight committee, in fact the very reports that upper CDI management had suppressed.
According to testimony by CDI employees, including Ossias, and Assistant Chief Counsel Robert Hagedorn, the commissioner and his top aides abused their positions for personal gain and acted against consumers’ interests for many years.
Quackenbush resigned from office shortly after Ossias testified before the Legislature. He was never charged, although his Deputy Commissioner was charged with and pleaded guilty to having accepted kickbacks from contributions made from the insurance foundations set up by Quackenbush. Two others were indicted in the same scheme.
In the wake of Ossias' whistleblowing, a measure was passed (AB 363) permitting lawyers representing governmental clients at any level to report crimes and fraud to law enforcement or to government oversight bodies "in order to prevent or rectify substantial harm to the public." That bill was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. A subsequent similar measure passed and was vetoed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who became Governor after Davis was recalled.
Subsequent career
Following the Quackenbush events and the term of the acting commissioner (during which period Ossias was assigned only minor cases, thereby appeasing insurers allegedly lobbying for her termination), John Garamendi was reelected Insurance Commissioner. Under Garamendi, Ossias served as lead counsel/project manager in CDI's case involving the claims and business practices of the nation's largest disability income insurance holding company, UnumProvident Corp. The investigation concluded with a settlement with UnumProvident, in which the company paid an $8 million fine, agreed to make substantial changes to their disability income insurance policies sold in California to make them more favorable to their insureds, and agreed to reassess claims that had been denied or terminated between 1997 and 2005. The company also agreed to provide an independent third party review to those claimants not satisfied with the company's reassessment.
Some sources indicated that Ossias considered running for Insurance Commissioner in 2006 as a Democrat. However, she did not run, and Lieutenant GovernorCruz Bustamante defeated Kraft Foods heir John Kraft for the Democratic nomination. Bustamante, in turn, lost to Republican businessman Steve Poizner.
External links
ConsumerWatchDog.org – 'Whistle-Blower Emerges in Quackenbush Probe Scandal: Staffer provided documents, saying she could no longer tolerate misconduct', Virginia Ellis, Carl Ingram, Los Angeles Times (June 23, 2000)
Peer.org – 'California Legislature Passes Government Lawyer Whistleblower Bill – First Major State to Free Public Agency Attorneys to Reveal Confidential Information', Public Employees for Environmental Protection (September 5, 2002)
Related Research Articles
Cruz Miguel Bustamante is an American politician. He previously served as the 45th lieutenant governor of California from 1999 to 2007, serving under governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A member of the Democratic Party, Bustamante previously served as the Speaker of the California State Assembly from 1996 to 1998.
The Progressive Corporation is an American insurance company, the third largest insurance carrier and the No. 1 commercial auto insurer in the United States. The company was co-founded in 1937 by Jack Green and Joseph M. Lewis, and is headquartered in Mayfield Village, Ohio. The company insures passenger vehicles, motorcycles, RVs, trailers, boats, PWC, and commercial vehicles. Progressive also provides home, life, pet, and other insurance through select companies. Progressive has expanded internationally as well, offering auto insurance in Australia.
The Allstate Corporation is an American insurance company, headquartered in Northfield Township, Illinois, near Northbrook since 1967. Founded in 1931 as part of Sears, Roebuck and Co., it was spun off in 1993 but still partially owned by Sears, until it became completely an independent company in June 1995. The company also has personal lines insurance operations in Canada.
State Farm Insurance is a large group of mutual insurance companies throughout the United States with corporate headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois.
John Raymond Garamendi is an American businessman, politician, and member of the Democratic Party who has represented areas of Northern California between San Francisco and Sacramento, including the cities of Fairfield and Suisun City, in the United States House of Representatives since 2009. Garamendi was the California Insurance Commissioner from 1991 to 1995 and 2003 to 2007, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Interior from 1995 to 1998, and the 46th lieutenant governor of California from 2007 until his election to Congress in late 2009.
Unum Group is an American insurance company company headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Founded as Union Mutual in 1848 and known as UnumProvident from 1999-2007, the company is part of the Fortune 500. Unum Group was created by the 1999 merger of Unum Corporation and The Provident Companies and comprises four distinct businesses – Unum US, Unum UK, Unum Poland and Colonial Life. Its underwriting insurers include The Paul Revere Life Insurance Company and Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company. Unum is the top disability insurer in both the United States and United Kingdom and also offers other insurance products including accident, critical illness and life insurance.
Liability insurance is a part of the general insurance system of risk financing to protect the purchaser from the risks of liabilities imposed by lawsuits and similar claims and protects the insured if the purchaser is sued for claims that come within the coverage of the insurance policy.
Charles Quackenbush is an American former politician and Florida law enforcement officer. A Republican, he served as Insurance Commissioner of California from 1995–2000 and as a California State Assemblyman representing the 22nd District, from 1986–1994.
RSA Insurance Group Limited is a British multinational general insurance company headquartered in London, England. RSA has major operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scandinavia & Canada. It provides insurance products and services in more than 100 countries through a network of local partners. It has 9 million customers. RSA was formed by the merger of Sun Alliance and Royal Insurance in 1996.
An insurance broker is an intermediary who sells, solicits, or negotiates insurance on behalf of a client for compensation. An insurance broker is distinct from an insurance agent in that a broker typically acts on behalf of a client by negotiating with multiple insurers, while an agent represents one or more specific insurers under a contract.
Insurance bad faith is a tort unique to the law of the United States that an insurance company commits by violating the "implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing" which automatically exists by operation of law in every insurance contract. In common law countries such as Australia and the UK, the issue is usually framed in the context of a failure of the duty of utmost good faith originating in English insurance law, which does not constitute a tort but rather provides the insured a contractual remedy unique to insurance law.
Farmers Insurance Group is an American insurer group of vehicles, homes and small businesses and also provides other insurance and financial services products. Farmers Insurance has more than 48,000 exclusive and independent agents and approximately 21,000 employees. Farmers is the trade name for three reciprocal insurers, Farmers, Fire, and Truck owned by their policyholders. The non-claims activities of Farmers are managed by an attorney in fact, Farmers Group Inc, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zurich Insurance Group.
A Cumis counsel is "an attorney employed by a defendant in a lawsuit when there is a liability insurance policy supposedly covering the claim, but there is a conflict of interest between the insurance company and the insured defendant."
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP was an international law firm with nearly 800 lawyers and other professionals in the United States and Europe, serving businesses, non-profits and individuals. The firm was founded in Chicago in 1906 and as of May 2010 ranked as the 58th-largest law firm in the U.S. by revenue. In September 2010 it merged with London-based Denton Wilde Sapte to form SNR Denton.
The California Department of Insurance (CDI), established in 1868, is the agency charged with overseeing insurance regulations, enforcing statutes mandating consumer protections, educating consumers, and fostering the stability of insurance markets in California. The CDI has authority over how the insurance industry conducts business within California, and licenses and regulates the rates and practices of insurance companies, agents, and brokers in the state.
Insurance in the United States refers to the market for risk in the United States, the world's largest insurance market by premium volume. According to Swiss Re, of the $6.287 trillion of global direct premiums written worldwide in 2020, $2.530 trillion (40.3%) were written in the United States.
The Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) is a regulatory body governing managed health care plans, sometimes referred to as Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) in California. The DMHC was created as the first state department in the country solely dedicated to regulating managed health care plans and assisting consumers to resolve disputes with their health plans. The DMHC Help Center educates consumers about their health care rights, resolves consumer complaints, helps consumers navigate and understand their coverage and assists consumers in getting timely access to appropriate health care services.
Hangarter v. Provident Insurance Company, 373 F.3d 998, , is a landmark decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on the issue of disability bad faith insurance law. Because California’s bad faith insurance law is often referred to in many states as a model nationwide, the 9th Circuit’s decision has a persuasive impact throughout the country.
The Gerling-Konzern, also known as the Gerling Group, was an internationally operating Cologne-based multi-line insurance company that was taken over in April 2006 by the Hanover-based Talanx Group, brand name HDI Haftpflichtverband der Deutschen Industrie, Germany's third largest insurance group. The group was fully integrated into HDI.
Kurt Hamann was a German businessman who, as chairman of the Victorian Insurance Company, foreclosed on Jewish homes and covered slave labor factories. Honors bestowed upon Hamann were revoked in 2008 after information about his Nazi-era activities emerged.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
