The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-09-20
COMMISSIONER ANDY CLUNIE.
THE INSURANCE MEN CAMPING
ON HIS TRAIL.
They Denounce His Methods, and
Say He is a "Bluster-
ing Upstart."

Other people may or may not nave
their troubles, but the insurance men
seem &c be in trouble most or the
time Just now they have grievance
or several ances-against state
Insurance Commissioner Andy Clunle.
The San Francisco Chronicle" thus re-
fers TO the war that is being made on
him:
Insurance Commissioner Clunle mas
stirred up a hornets nest about MS OF
fetal ears. His recent orders have an
gered alike the foreign fire underwent
ers and the life insurance companies,
whose wrath against the State officer IS
Illuminated through the columns OF the
September number of the Coast Re
view in the hottest of prose. He IS
accused of ignorance of insurance and
of insur ance law, of impudence and I'M
due thrift and narrowness, and is styled
an official bully and a clustering up
start, among other things.
Commissioner Clunie's offenses are
severaI. according to the insurance au-
thoritv. which makes divers threats in
case he further attempts to carry out
his Interpretation Of the State Consti-
tuition and the laws of California me
least of his offending is the removal OF
the insurance department from Cali
fornia street to the Parrot building on
Market street, a location distant from
the underwriting center.
More grave is his demand that, I'M
der Sections II and Is of the Constitu-
ton. insurance companies organized
outside of this State shall also keep
a record Of their stockholders and all
transfers of stock. Clunie's contention
that foreign companies are permitted
to do business under more favorable
conditions than those prescribed for
home companies is treated as ridicu-
lous. No State in the Union, says the
Coast Review, has a law requiring
foreign corporations to keep in the
State g. record of all stock transfers.
Such a law would be territorial
and Invalid, and would be a product of
sheer idiocy, exclains the insurance or
gan.
THE life offices have their grievance,
and are even more worked up over it
than the fire companies. The law says
that the life organizations must have
a paid-up capital of 100000 or more.
This. it is claimed, applies only to two
companies, which have the required
amount of capital The others, it is as
serted, are merely mutual in character,
and if Clunie insists that they shall in
crease their capital stock to S20O,O00
the Equitable Home, Manhattan.
Providence Savings. Union Central and
Washington viii be affected. His re-
quest to the home offices is termed
merely 'impudent.'
What. however, has most excited the
ire of the life companies is the demand
of the Commissioner for a full history
of every life policy issued since July,
1880 What a snap such list of pol
cy-holders would be for a twister. He
could afford to pay the Commissioner
a handsome sum for the list declaims
the Coast Review
THE general agents have refused tc
allow their books to be examined and
the privacy of life insurance contracts
to be thus invaded They take the
ground that Clunie IS seeking to usurI
authority. and it is asserted that if he
persists in his demands several com
panies. perhaps all, will withdraw from
this State.
THE information which he asks is
held to be a private matter, to disclose
which would be a violation of the Sc
crets Of the insured, and it is stOutly
oontended that Clunie has no right, il
any event, to go back of the term OF
his office and review the work of his
predecessors.
There is some talk of the insurance
companies, both fire and life, uniting
to make a test case in the courts as tC
the demands and authority of the State
Insurance Commissioner"