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:

History of Discrimination Cited Against Mercury Insurance

By Steven Harmon, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
February 9, 2010

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Lawmakers Want Insurer Scrutinized

By Carla Marinucci, THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
February 9, 2010

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Insurer May Have Violated Law, Report Reveals

By Carla Marinucci, THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
February 8, 2010

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Recent Posts in Affordable Car & Home Insurance:

Chronicle reveals discrimination at Mercury Insurance, Soldiers targeted

In case all those ads about how great insurance companies are was starting to make you feel all fuzzy inside, Carla Marinucci at the San Francisco Chronicle just posted a revealing and disturbing look into the widespread discrimination at California's 3rd largest auto insurer, Mercury Insurance....

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Inside Jerry Brown's brain, the illegal tapes

It's rare that you get to hear what's in the brain of a powerful politician because his phone conversations were taped.

Listening to Jerry Brown opine, berate and spin reporters about their age, his age, what they should...

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Tapegate and the Mercury initiative flip-flop

“Tapegate” – that’s how the news media is describing the scandal that arose last week after Attorney General Jerry Brown decided to change the Title and Summary of Mercury Insurance Company’s ballot initiative so it no longer discloses that the initiative will increase auto insurance premiums for millions of Californians.

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SF Chronicle calls on AG Brown to clear the air about secret tape recordings

The San Francisco Chronicle urged Cal. Attorney General Jerry Brown to "clear the air" today in an editorial about his now-resigned spokesman's secret tape recording of conversations with reporters.

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AG's office secretly taped conversation with reporter on Mercury initiative

I can't believe this! Two days ago, I told you about how Attorney General Jerry Brown rewrote the official summary of a ballot measure sponsored by Mercury Insurance Company to omit the fact that it will raise auto insurance premiums. This morning The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Brown's spokesman secretly taped a conversation with reporter Carla Marinucci in an effort to keep a story about Brown's action out of the newspaper.

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Mercury's Deceptive Initiative

Celebrating 20 Years of Prop 103

Prop 103 Credited with $61.7 Billion in Savings