Who Hit the Jackpot?
Santa Monica, CA. — A consumer group today released a document revealing that the top two executives of malpractice insurer the Doctors Company were paid more than $4 million in compensation by the company in the year 2000. The Doctors Company advocates limiting the rights of victims of medical negligence by limiting their compensation for pain and suffering to $250,000.
Dr. Richard Anderson, Chair of the Doctors Company, has become a national spokesman for California-style caps on malpractice victims’ compensation. According to his company’s Annual Statement for the Year 2000, Anderson was paid $1,792,994 in total compensation. Doctors Company President, Manuel Puebla, received $2,213,025. That year, the company’s top three officers were paid $4.78 million.
“In two months, Richard Anderson’s yearly compensation surpasses the lifetime damage cap he would impose on victims of negligent doctors. Company president Manuel Puebla’s compensation overruns that cap in six weeks,” said Carmen Balber, consumer advocate with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR). “Anderson insists that the malpractice insurance system can’t hold up to million-dollar jury verdicts. But what about million-dollar salaries? The way to solve high medical malpractice insurance rates is through insurance reform, and capping executive salaries would be a good place to start.”
Anderson was called upon by consumer advocates with FTCR to reveal his salary, and his personal stake in limiting Doctors Company liability, in January, but Anderson refused. Doctors Company public filings with the California State Department of Insurance for the last several years have also failed to report executive compensation.
Executives of the Doctors Company, an interinsurance exchange, earn more than the CEOs of many publicly held malpractice insurers where companies are required to disclose executive compensation. The head of AIG, one of the nation’s largest medical malpractice insurers, was paid over $1 million in 2001 and the head of Farmers Insurance Group made $1.3 million.
Click here to view the document disclosing the Doctors Company executive salaries.
