Doug Heller

Santa Monica, CA -- Allstate Insurance has agreed to stop selling its aggressively marketed "Your Choice Auto" (YCA) insurance program in California, in response to a challenge brought by the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog.  As of today, Allstate will no longer issue new YCA policies, which Consumer Watchdog considers deceptive and overpriced, and by November 2011, the approximately 150,000 existing YCA policies in California will be phased out completely.

After a $5 million campaign by insurance companies to defeat him, Dave Jones has been sworn in as California's fourth elected Insurance Commissioner.  I was at the inauguration in Sacramento and these are my notes...

Interestingly, if not surprisingly, the insurance industry that spent all that money attacking Jones is here in full force. (Well, it's an open event...)

As the Daily Journal reports today:

Battle lines are being drawn between consumer activists and the California Department of Insurance on one side and the insurance industry on the other concerning a state appellate court decision whose opponents say immunizes insurers for using illegal underwriting criteria to determine rates.