Internal reports prepared by California Department of Insurance (CDI) investigators show that Mercury Insurance Company used a variety of internal company rules – many unwritten – to overcharge or refuse to sell insurance to many Californians it deemed "unacceptable," including Americans serving in the military, small businesspeople, unmarried people living together, people with diabetes, and the unemployed.

According to the investigations, Mercury repeatedly overcharged, cancelled, refused to sell insurance or made insurance more difficult for people to buy, based on customers’ military status, occupation, health, marital status, employment status, prior accidents that were not the driver’s fault, prior insurance coverage and other illegal criteria.

Read the San Francisco Chronicle story here.

See pages from the reports with some of the most egregious violations here.

Read Consumer Watchdog’s summary of the internal reports here.

The reports can be downloaded as a single, searchable document here (10 Mb).

Or they can be downloaded in parts as follows:
June 14, 2004 cover letter from a Department of Insurance investigator to the Chief of the agency’s Field Rating and Underwriting Bureau (FRUB) – download here (152K).

June 14, 2004 “FRUB Referral to Legal Division” – download here (1 Mb)

Exhibits to the June 14, 2004 cover letter and “FRUB Referral”:

• Exhibit 1 – the 2002 Examination and related documentation – download here (1.4 Mb)
• Exhibit 2 – the 1998 Examination and related documentation – download here (4.8 Mb)
• Exhibits 3-13 – download here (2.9 Mb)