Auto Insurance Affordable Car & Home Insurance

Just about every state requires drivers to buy auto insurance but very few states offer any serious consumer protection for insurance customers. California's Proposition 103 (the 1988 initiative authored by Consumer Watchdog founder Harvey Rosenfield) provides motorists the most protection from insurance price gouging in the nation. Since 1988, California has been the only state to see auto insurance premiums consistently decline, while insurers hiked rates by an average of 35% around the nation.

At Consumer Watchdog we enforce Prop 103's protections and fight for more, in California and around the country. Over the years, Consumer Watchdog:

has helped save drivers over $23 billion on their auto insurance;
crafted the nation's first low-cost auto insurance policy for low-income drivers;
led the 18 year fight to force California insurance companies to base premiums on a driver's record, not their ZIP Code; and
we've successfully sued insurance companies that cheat an overcharge customers.

The Failure of No-Fault Auto Insurance

As much as we have fought for insurance consumer rights and fair premiums, we have also fought efforts by insurance companies to strip consumers of their rights.

For years, insurers have tried to replace the personal responsibility insurance systems most common in the U.S. (the driver who causes the accident is responsible for the damages) with highly inefficient and unfair "No-Fault" auto insurance schemes. Read a brief histoy of No-Fault. We have fought them off at the ballot box and have studied No-Fault systems and demonstrated that they are more costly and less protective.

Information about our most recent report - The Cost of No Fault Auto Insurance - is available from our news release announcing the study, which can be downloaded here. A critique of studies conducted by the Rand Corporation is available here.

Auto Insurance Policy

Auto Insurance Policy The most important feature in a personal auto policy is protection against third party liability claims. You hit somebody else and cost you there bodily injury or property damage. That individual has a right to recover damages form you as a result of human negligence. You could think of it as a legal insurance policy. If you ever gets sued for causing an accident, it is your insurance company that pays my hourly rates, not you. There is a second feature to a personal auto policy and that is physical damage car version. People will have, say $20,000.00 in coverage. With $20,000.00 is not a lot of money anymore for property damage to a car. Cars are with $40,000.00, $50,000.00, $60,000.00, so immediately people have great problems because they do not have the coverage that they need. Uninsured motorist coverage is the most important coverage that you can buy. This part of the policy allows you to purchase a limit of liability to protect you and the occupants of your vehicle against injury and damage caused by who does not carry insurance. You have to understand, there are great many people riding around you who do not have any insurance coverage at all. If you do not know how the system works, you are not going to do as well.