Affordable Car & Home Insurance

Home Insurance

Unlike most things you buy for your home, you hope you'll never have to use your insurance, even though you're required to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars every year for it. But when you need it, you expect that the company will be there for you, especially after all those years of paying premiums without ever making a claim. Consumer Watchdog keeps an eye on the practice of homeowners insurance companies to make sure they don't overcharge customers and that they pay claims properly and quickly.

Unfortunately, for many people, the first time they think about their home insurance is when disaster strikes. In addition to doing your best to protect against a disaster, some simple steps can help ensure that, if you have to file an insurance claim you won't find yourself having to fight your insurer , while picking up the pieces.

Consumer Watchdog has worked in California and across the country to fight for homeowners and renters who have to buy insurance and, because of wide-scale disaster or a burst pipe, have to file an insurance claim.

We have:

  • lowered homeowners insurance rates in California by hundreds of millions of dollars;
  • fought insurance companies practice of basing premiums on customers' credit history;
  • gone to regulators to stop "Use It and Lose It" abuses in which insurers charge homeowners more just because they filed a legitimate claim;
  • we've exposed the smoking guns that show insurers trying to jack up prices when a big storm hits; and
  • we've sued insurers for low-balling and defrauding customers in the wake of an earthquake.
Have you been cheated by a low-balling home insurer? Let us know.

Recent Articles:

GeoVera Boosts Earthquake Insurance Premiums

By Kathleen Pender, THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
January 28, 2010

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Haiti Refocuses Attention On Quake Insurance

By Kathleen Pender, THE SAN FRANCISO CHRONICLE
January 24, 2010

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Calif. Court Says Insurers Must Pay Consumer Advocate Fees

By Mark E. Ruquet, NATIONAL UNDERWRITER
January 5, 2010

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Recent Posts in Affordable Car & Home Insurance:

Health insurance premium curbs are catching on

Consumer Watchdog's calls for tough and open health insurance rate regulation are being echoed and amplified. The latest instance is in Connecticut, the home state of insurance companies, where Attorney General Earl Blumenthal recently proposed major reforms that would require the state to review and reject, modify or allow a rate change before it goes into effect. No more shrugging and letting it happen without a public review.

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Jerry Brown gets it right on Prop 17's Title & Summary

California Attorney General Jerry Brown has issued his final ballot label for Proposition 17, the Mercury Insurance-financed ballot measure to surcharge those with lapses in auto insurance coverage.  Brown got the ballot label right this time, acknowledging Prop 17 allowed insurers to increase premiums, as well as lower prices, based on whether a driver has a lapse in insurance coverage.

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Anthem as "Exhibit A"

Kevin Sack hits it right on the head in today's New York Times with his story about how Anthem's 39% premium increase in California embodies the need for health care reform. The missing element is prior approval health insurance regulation.

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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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