Affordable Car & Home Insurance

For more than 20 years, Consumer Watchdog has been the nation's leading insurance reform organization and has saved consumers tens of billions of dollars.

Consumer Watchdog & Prop. 103 Savings
See how much money Consumer Watchdog and Prop. 103 have saved Californians in recent years >>.

Over the years we have:

  • Enforced the nation's most stringent insurance reform law, California's Prop 103, authored by Consumer Watchdog founder Harvey Rosenfield;
  • Saved California drivers $62 billion since passage (1989-2006);
  • Drafted and won passage of the nation's first low-cost auto insurance policy for low-income motorists;
  • Fought for fair auto insurance rates, and recently ended (in California) the decades-old discriminatory practice of ZIP code-based auto insurance rates, so California premiums are based primarily on a driver's record not where they live;
    See interview with Prop 103 author Harvey Rosenfield here:

  • Challenged excessive homeowners insurance rates, forcing companies to charge about a half-billion dollars less than they proposed in recent years; and,
  • Saved doctors more than $60 million by challenging medical malpractice insurance rate hikes, demonstrating that insurance regulation, rather than limits on the rights of injured patients, is key to keeping doctors' insurance premiums down. Go to our Protecting Patients campaign for more about medical malpractice.

When citizen volunteers beat back the record-breaking $80 million insurance industry-funded campaign against Proposition 103, they set in motion a fight to keep insurance prices fair and companies honest that Consumer Watchdog carries on to this day.

In DC and in every state, insurance companies have armies of lobbyists, lawyers and "experts" working to keep rates too high and regulation of industry practices too weak. Drivers, homeowners and businesses are required to buy insurance products, but in most states the insurance companies have won almost total freedom from oversight and consumer protection.

California's Prop 103 is the exception. At Consumer Watchdog we fight in the legislature, regulatory agencies and court to protect this reform and expand it.

Recent Articles:

Consumer Group Calls For FBI Probe Of AIG

By Wire Reports, UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL (UPI)
March 18, 2009

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AIG Bonuses Should Be Delivered by FBI, Consumer Watchdog Says

CONTACT: Jamie Court, (310) 392-0522 ext. 327; or Doug Heller, ext. 309
March 16, 2009

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Consumer Lawyers Fighting Against Legal Tide

By Laura Ernde, LOS ANGELES DAILY JOURNAL
March 2, 2009

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Recent Posts in Affordable Car & Home Insurance:

Obama On Tonight Show Hints At Tomorrow's Regulatory Agenda

The president talked and joked easily with America from Jay Leno's couch last night, as close to a fire side chat as it gets in these times. Leno is no Jon Stewart but Obama did offer some clues as to where his financial regulatory approach is going. 

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Will the politicians give back their AIG bonuses'?

After Enron's fraud on California during the 2001 electricity crisis became clear, a lot of politicians felt they had to give back their Enron contributions.  Our consumer group was the beneficiary of a few of those returned dollars, since we fought the energy industry's deregulation schemes.  Now Open Secrets reports AIG's contributions, from employees and related political action committees, to federal lawmakers totaled $9.3 million over the last decade, with an exact 50%-50% split between Democrats and Republicans. AIG sure knows how to hedge its bets.

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OTS admits fault in AIG oversight

The Office of Thrift Supervision took responsibility for its failure as AIG's primary regulator to prevent the company's accumulation of extreme risk in the years before its collapse.

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Insurance policyholders not at risk because of the financial crisis

I spent the morning watching a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing into what a ‘systemic risk regulator’ of the financial...

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AIG v. AIG: Lawsuit-hating former chairman files lawsuit

Five years ago, AIG's then-Chairman, Hank Greenberg, compared lawyers who sue corporations on behalf of injured plaintiffs with terrorists.   Now he's suing his former company.

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Secretary Geithner Flip-Flops Before Committee

Celebrating 20 Years of Prop 103

Prop 103 Credited with $61.7 Billion in Savings