Garamendi Lowers Pure Premium Rate 14.9%

California's Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi yesterday announced he has significantly lowered the advisory pure premium rate by 14.9%, effectively returning it to the July 2002 level.The reduction is three times what the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau had recommended earlier this week, and is a third more than the more liberal actuarial assessment offered by Frank Neuhauser, project director at the DATA/Survey Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, on behalf of the CHSWC. "Our businesses cannot continue to operate under the crushing weight of this dysf...