(a) The commissioner may issue subpoenas and subpoenas duces tecum for witnesses to attend, testify and produce documents before him, on any subject touching insurance business, or in aid of his duties. Such process may be served, obeyed, and enforced as provided in the Code of Civil Procedure for civil cases. A defaulting witness may, upon application by the commissioner to the superior court, be required by order of such court to appear before the commissioner to testify as the court may order. The court may punish disobedience of its order as a contempt of court.

All the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure relating to means of production of evidence shall be applicable to any hearing or investigation under this section. The provisions of this subdivision shall not apply to proceedings required by other provisions of this code to be conducted in accordance with Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 11500), Part 1, Division 3, Title 2 of the Government Code.

(b) A person shall not be excused from testifying or from producing any book, document, or other thing under his control upon any such hearing or investigation on the ground that his testimony, or the book, document, or other thing required of him, may tend to incriminate him, or may have a tendency to subject him to punishment for a felony or misdemeanor; but no individual shall be prosecuted or be subjected to punishment for a felony or misdemeanor for or on account of any act, transaction, matter or thing concerning which he is so compelled, after validly claiming his privilege against self-incrimination, to testify or produce, except for perjury or contempt committed in such testimony.

(Amended by Stats. 1969, Ch. 819.)