Republican Steve Poizner has laid out an ambitious agenda for his new job… But he says a primary goal is to drive down insurance costs.  He says the savings will help customers and pump more cash into the state’s economy.  

“ I regulate about 120-billion dollars of insurance premium a year. That’s close to 15-percent of the entire California economy…” 

Poizner says one way to address the issue of costs is to tackle insurance fraud—he says that runs about 15-billion dollars a year.   

However he says he must first deal with a 25-percent vacancy rate in his fraud fighting unit. In a speech to the Sacramento Press Club, the Republican said among his other goals is to make the Insurance Commissioner a non-partisan office.  He also wants to ban insurance companies from donating to insurance commissioner candidates.