We deserve an accounting from Pinnacol

Times-Call Editorial

6/2/2010
http://www.timescall.com/editorial/editorial.asp?ID=22250

Pinnacol Assurance argues that the expenses incurred on a recent trip that board members and agents took to Pebble Beach are not public. So, the state-chartered insurer is battling the efforts of a Denver television station to find out just how much money the company spent at the resort, where hotel rooms can run more the $700 per night and rounds of golf $500.

"Pinnacol receives no funding from the state and therefore no public funds were expended in connection with the event," the organization said in a statement.

But three of the company's governor-appointed board members were involved. They're the ones responsible for oversight of Pinnacol. They're the ones who benefited from the lavish five-day trip that cost ... well ... an amount that Pinnacol's officers refuse to reveal.

And that undisclosed amount of money? It comes from the premiums paid by members.

Legislators are calling for resignations of the board members who accepted the trip.

Pinnacol Assurance's ethics policy states that "the business of Pinnacol Assurance shall be conducted with honesty and integrity and in accordance with the highest ethical and legal standards."

That policy defines a conflict of interest as including the receipt of "gifts, trips, entertainment or other favors of more than nominal value" from suppliers, contractors or customers. The board's relationship to Pinnacol isn't mentioned, but ethical and legal standards demand that those members not accept gifts from the agency they are charged with overseeing. And though Pinnacol believes that the public should not know how much this trip cost, be sure that it was of more than nominal value.

Pinnacol and its board members must do more than account for the cost of this trip. They must provide Coloradans an account for this reckless lapse in judgment.

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