Dave Jones: COVID-19 and Employer-Based Insurance

In this episode, former California Insurance Commissioner, Dave Jones talks with students from the UC Riverside School of Public Policy about the implications and challenges the American system of employer-based insurance is currently facing due to COVID-19.

About Dave Jones:

Mr. Jones is a member of the UCR’s School of Public Policy Advisory Board. He previously served as California’s Insurance Commissioner from 2011 to 2019. The California Department of Insurance regulates the nation’s largest insurance market in the insurance industry which collects about 257 billion dollars in premiums annually from California. Prior to this role, Mr. Jones served in the California State Assembly chairing the Assembly Health Committee, the Judiciary Committee and the Budget Subcommittee on Health and Human Services from 2004 to 2011.

Learn more about Dave Jones via https://spp.ucr.edu/about/people#advisory_board.

Podcast Highlights:

“We may have an additional 7 million uninsured people in this country by a virtue of all the people that are unemployed and as those unemployments grow, we will have more people uninsured.”

-       Dave Jones on the topic of the impacts COVID-19 has had on health insurance.

“Insurers did not price these policies based on having to pay out business interruption claims...450 billion dollars a month in losses that this may suffer as a result of business interruption and the insurers simply have not priced the policies to cover those losses.”

-       Dave Jones on the topic of the impacts COVID-19 has had on other insurance industries like auto, business, and life insurance.

“One of the things we’ve learned tragically with COVID-19 is the importance of preparation and we simply weren’t prepared...so too with climate change, we’re not prepared.”

-       Dave Jones on the topic of the government and private sector response to COVID-19 and how it can help to respond to other issues.

Guest:

Dave Jones (School of Public Policy Advisory Board Member)

Interviewers:

Maddie Bunting (UCR Public Policy Major, Dean’s Chief Ambassador)

Eric Calderon (UCR Public Policy Major, Dean’s Ambassador ‘20)

Music by:

Samuel Roberts (UCR Public Policy ‘20)

This is a production of the UCR School of Public Policy: https://spp.ucr.edu/

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