By Laurence Darmiento, LOS ANGELES TIMES
Jeff Phillips, a retired computer consultant who lives in Oceanside, did a double take when he saw his auto insurance bill from Garrison Property & Casualty. It was nearly $300 more than last year.
Phillips, 60, who primarily drives a 2010 Mercedes SUV and owns other vehicles, is now paying $3,244 a year for coverage from the USAA subsidiary, despite a multi-car and good driver discount.
“I didn’t have any incidents that would have caused it to go up,” he said. “So I was kind of shocked that it was going up as high as it was.”
If, like Phillips, you’ve recently received your renewal for auto insurance in the mail and can’t quite believe how much it has gone up, you aren’t imagining things.
The top 10 insurers in California got the nod last year to raise premiums an average of 6% – on top of a 15.4% hike in 2024 and a 13% jump in 2023, according to S&P Capital IQ.
Add it all up and rates by insurers who write about 85% of all California auto insurance have climbed on average more than one-third since the pandemic.
That means a California driver who paid the state’s average premium of $1,087 in 2022 could be paying hundreds more today.
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Due to the pandemic slowdown in driving, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara ordered insurers to refund premiums (opens in new tab). Though Lara alleged insurers didn’t fully comply (opens in new tab) with his directive, spokesperson Gabriel Sanchez said $3.3 billion has been returned to policyholders.
However, Los Angeles-based advocacy group Consumer Watchdog maintains insurers actually reaped a windfall of $5.9 billion (opens in new tab), and it filed unsuccessful litigation seeking to force greater refunds.
“It was a windfall that should have been used to offset any rate increases sought by insurance companies,” said Rosenfield, founder of Consumer Watchdog.
