Case Study - Coalition for Auto Insurance Competition

Overview

Years of over-regulation had left New Jersey’s auto insurance market in a state of near-collapse. Numerous auto insurers fled New Jersey to escape unprofitable and unpredictable conditions created by the state’s heavy regulatory burden. Resulting capacity pressure on the few remaining auto insurers made it difficult for consumers to purchase auto insurance, a situation that was rapidly approaching crisis proportions.

Objective

The campaign’s key element lay in educating legislators, opinion leaders, and the general public that the crisis was the direct result of the state’s regulatory system, and that alleviating the regulatory burden on auto insurers would benefit drivers above all. Equally important was changing how New Jerseyans traditionally spoke and thought about auto insurance, shifting the focus from its perceived high cost to the problem of availability.

Tactics

The communications campaign invested significant time to reaching the state’s newspaper editorial boards. The boards were a particularly important because the campaign’s main audiences – state legislators and policy influencers – regularly read the state’s editorial pages. Despite the complexity of the issue, the editorial boards proved willing to dedicate the time to understanding its nuances. The campaign galvanized support and activity among the state’s auto insurance industry employees. Alerted by e-mail whenever the Governor and Insurance Commissioner were scheduled to appear on radio call-in talk shows, employees called in to these programs to air the campaign’s message and keep the executive branch’s attention on the auto insurance issue. To further extend the campaign’s message, we pitched public affairs television and radio shows broadcast from both the New York and Philadelphia media markets.

Results

The editorial board outreach strategy reaped returns far exceeding expectations. Supportive and positive editorials appeared in nearly every major daily newspaper in New Jersey, along with the Wall Street Journal and the Philadelphia Inquirer. No newspaper editorialized in opposition to lessening the regulatory burden on New Jersey auto insurers.

Thousands of calls were placed to radio call-in shows, impressing on the Governor and Insurance Commissioner the public’s concern about the availability of auto insurance.

Client spokespeople appeared on countless public affairs shows, including ABC and Fox affiliates in both New York and Philadelphia.

On June 9, 2003, Governor James McGreevey signed into law legislation reforming the state’s auto insurance regulatory system.