Eric Dinallo strikes me as a smart choice for N.Y. superintendent of insurance, one who may have Spitzer-like reform zeal but, having worked at Willis and been around the industry, comes to the post knowing that the insurance business is not simply a corrupt hodge-podge of unchecked greed. Nor are its people any better or worse than any other field " maybe a little better, if you look carefully.

The superinten-dent-elect is an insider" as is his wife " in the new Albany regime. He is credited with being the source of the light bulb that went on Attorney General Eliot Spitzers offices and set focus upon Merill Lynchs activities and, subsequently, the Sheriff of Wall Streets agenda.

Past superintendents, early in their tenures, would routinely remark that the NYSID is the nations best. It was a re-enforcement to the whole mini-economy within the states economy that is the insuring business. It is likely that a Superintendent Dinallo will adopt a more critical posture, reflective of the entire reform-driven administration, yet hell probably, inevitably, come to see the NYSID as an organ of change and high accountability " with some notable recent exceptions in the Liquidation Bureau. We wish the superintendent-elect well.

Watchers Fail to See

Alan Hevesi was smart to cut a deal and step down as many of us had steadily advocated. Rumor has it that N.Y. Assembly Insurance Committee Chairman Peter Grannis, is up for the post. The scandals and dubious ethics keep on surfacing in Albany. What is it with these officials? Are they paid so little that alternatives become necessary? Is it the structure of their service (i.e. permanent part-time legislators) that finds public trust and business lines crossed? Or is it that no one is really watching. Those who watch Albany are usually content with a status quo of which they are beneficiaries. Change seems imminent. We hope so. Even the most jaded insider knows that the trough-feeding is getting particularly piggish, and the obstructionists are more pig-headed. It wont be long until the public gets wind and makes the hogs pay in local elections.

This column originally appeared in the December 28 Insurance Advocate e-Newsletter.