One Problem Solved Creates Another.

• Author: Carbajal, Michael, Jr.
• Position: ON THE LEVEL VIEWS OF A STOREFRONT BROKER

There is no doubt that the most important and expensive benefit that some employees receive is health insurance coverage. The broader the coverage gets, the more expensive medical costs become. Some observers believe that because of these costs and because too many Americans have no health coverage at all. the trend is toward a universal health insurance plan or socialized medicine or a combination of both.

Whenever industry has tried to shift a larger pan of the cost of this insurance to the individual, the outcry from organized labor has been deafening. There seems to be an inequity in the way health benefits are allocated to employees. A single individual's insurance costs are far less than an employee with a family. The employer pays for both but one receives greater benefits than the other.

The City of New York has now come up with a plan that makes the inequity far greater. Coverage has been extended to the live-in companions of gays and lesbians who are city employees.

I cannot visualize how this program is going to be administered. Must employees prove that they are gay or lesbian? Must the companions be lovers, or does a straight friend or relative, who is a room mate, qualify?

I had always been under the impression that complaints against producers in the NYAIP, were first forwarded to the plan and that the plan then sent a copy to the producer. This is not the case. The company sends the complaint directly to the producer and sometimes a copy is sent to the plan.

This bit of information is important because in a prior column. I reported that the AIP screens the complaints before they are sent to the producers. The good people at the NYAIP informed, in no uncertain terms, that they are in no way responsible for the actions of the companies via "Producer Performance Complaints." They get into the show when a complaint is shown to be valid or when the opposite is true. They receive about 400 a-day of these types and 1 am assured that they review every one.

Disciplinary actions by the NYAIP against producers who send in less than the required deposit premiums seem to have had an affect on the entire store front brokerage community. Most, not all, producers are being very careful when preparing applications. Incidents of short down payments are diminishing. I have been informed. However, his has been a windfall for the bandit producers. They are accepting lower deposits than ever before and business is booming. When they lose their...