Carmen Balber

Consumer Watchdog executive director Carmen Balber has been with the organization for overtwo decades. She spent four years directing the group’s Washington, D.C. office where she advocated for key health insurance market reforms that were ultimately enacted into law as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Balber is recognized as a leading expert on a wide range of personal insurance issues and has authored or co-authored numerous reports on the auto, health and medical malpractice insurance industries, and insurance rate regulation. Her recent advocacy focuses on the impacts of climate change and insurance industry accountability for rising prices and reduced access to insurance for homeowners and renters.

She also leads Consumer Watchdog’s advocacy to improve patient safety in California, including campaigns to win new access to justice for victims of medical negligence by updating the state’s cap on medical malpractice damages; winning a voice for injured consumers at the Medical Board of California; and legislation requiring doctors to check a patient’s prescription history before prescribing opioids and other drugs. In 2012, she managed the coalition effort to defeat Prop 33, a $17 million insurance industry initiative that would have raised rates on good drivers. She has appeared as a commentator on these topics on broadcasts and in publications across the country.

As an organizer with Consumer Watchdog, Balber ran campaigns to pass volunteer-qualified ballot measures enacting the nation’s strongest municipal conflict of interest protections in five cities across California. She also coordinated citizen organizing efforts in Consumer Watchdog’s successful volunteer lobbying effort to block a legislative utility bailout in Sacramento in 2001.

Before joining Consumer Watchdog, Balber learned the ropes at the Colorado and Washington PIRGs. She holds a B.A. in Politics from Pomona College in Claremont, California and is a graduate of UWC-USA in Montezuma, New Mexico, one of 17 secondary schools across the globe dedicated to making education a force for peace, sustainability and change by bringing together youth from a diversity of countries and cultures to live and learn. She is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Anishinaabe).

Carmen Balber

KNTV-SF (NBC) – San Francisco, CA: State Farm Insurance Rate Hike

Consumer Watchdog doesn't think the insurance giant has done enough to prove its financial hardship.

KNX-AM (Radio) – Los Angeles, CA: The Commissioner Did What Consumer Watchdog Has Been Urging For A Month Now

By Staff Reporters, KNX-AM – Los Angeles, CA Click below to listen to the audio of this radio broadcast segment.

KGO-SF (ABC) – San Francisco, CA: State Farm Rate Hike Gets Initial Okay

Carmen Balber says this is about a pattern and practice of financial mismanagement by state farm that they that depleted their bank account, and now they want California consumers to step in and bolster it again.

State Farm Rate Hike Request Goes To Public Hearing 

As urged by Consumer Watchdog, California's Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has called a hearing on State Farm’s unprecedented request for a $900 million "emergency"...

KCBS-AM (Radio) – San Francisco, CA: State Farm’s Public Hearing To Justify Rate Hikes Is A Victory For Transparency

By Staff Reporters, KCBS-AM – San Francisco, CA Click below to listen to the audio of this radio broadcast segment.

Consumer Watchdog Testifies, Calls on CA Lawmakers to Require Insurance Companies to Cover Fire Victims Who Build Back Better

Consumer Watchdog executive director Carmen Balber testified on March 12, 2025 to the State Senate Insurance Committee about the state of the insurance market...

KFI AM – Los Angeles, CA: None Of Lara’s Proposed Reforms Have Benefited Policyholders

By Staff Reporters, KFI-AM – Los Angeles, CA Click below to listen to the audio of this radio broadcast segment.

Newsletter

To be updated with all the latest news, press releases and special reports.

Don't miss

Lowball: What Fire Survivors Want You To Know About Insurance Claims

As thousands of policyholders navigate the home insurance claims process in California following the Eaton and Pacific Palisades fires, many are finding out that the damage wrought on their still standing homes by smoke and heat isn’t being paid for.

State Farm Investigation Must Conclude Before Rate Hike Approved Says Consumer Watchdog 

Los Angeles, CA --  Consumer Watchdog issued the following statement on...

Court Accepts Consumer Watchdog Amicus Brief Opposing Trump Tariff Authority

Second Federal Court Ruling Yesterday Echoes Concerns Raised in...

Commissioner Lara Approves Unjustified $749 Million State Farm Home Insurance Rate Hike

UPDATED 1:40PM Los Angeles, CA – A proposed decision recommending...
Support Consumer Watchdog