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 Posts in Affordable Car & Home Insurance:

Will 'progressives' let middle class burn to prove their point?

August 30, 2010 | Posted by Jamie Court

When Anthem Blue Cross announced its controversial premium increases in California recently, the insurer claimed, "a carrier must be able to receive actuarially sound rates." So it is remarkable that "progressive" San Francisco State Senator Mark Leno, a single payer health care advocate, recently introduced eleventh hour legislation codifying Anthem Blue Cross's "actuarially sound" defense of premium increases in law.

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Insurers hold death benefits for more profit

August 13, 2010 | Posted by Carmen Balber

Life insurers are facing broad criticism for profiting from the death benefits of soldiers and other life insurance policyholders after a claim is supposed to be paid...

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Corporate "smart initiatives" will test California voters' smarts Tuesday

June 3, 2010 | Posted by Jamie Court

During my two decades battling in California's ballot initiative process never before have large corporations been poised to gain so much so cleverly as in next Tuesday's election.

Industries have long tried to lard ballots...

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Health insurance premium curbs are catching on

March 10, 2010 | Posted by Judy Dugan

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

February 23, 2010 | Posted by Jamie Court

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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Another $250 Million Saved!

Help us save you more.

Nearly one million California Allstate customers each saved $250 on their homeowners insurance after a recent challenge by Consumer Watchdog under Prop 103.

Will you help us save policyholders even more?

Celebrating 20 Years of Prop 103

Prop 103 Credited with $61.7 Billion in Savings