‘Rewarding delay:’ CA insurance ‘intervenor’ collected big fees in ‘25

The California Consumer Watchdog group collected more than $1.4 million in fees in 2025 under a controversial California state program that rewards the group for "intervening" in California state insurance rate review proceedings.

A group representing California insurers, however, said the continued fee awards - building on Consumer Watchdog's history of raking in more than $12 million from the program in the past 13 years - highlight the need for reform.

“It should be no surprise that Consumer Watchdog has a monopoly on this cash cow in the regulatory process – it literally wrote the law to benefit itself,” said Nicole Mahrt-Ganley, assistant vice president for public affairs for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, in a released statement. “This self-serving provision rewards delay over real solutions—and Californian consumers are paying the price, literally.”

The new fees were reported in data supplied by the California Department of Insurance.

According to the data, Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog received about $1.43 million in fees in 2025 for intervening in insurance rate review proceedings, ostensibly to fight against rate increases on behalf of insurance customers.

That amount more than doubled the "intervenor" fees the group received in 2024, and marked their largest take since 2021. That year, Consumer Watchdog took in about $1.75 million, including $1.2 million paid by the California Department of Insurance (CDI).

Consumer Watchdog's take also amounted to more than 96% of all fees awarded to groups intervening in California insurance rate reviews. The only other group to collect such fees was the Consumer Federation of California Education Foundation, which brought in $47,500, according to the CDI.

The fees are paid out under California's unique intervenor program ensconced within the framework established under Proposition 103. Passed in 1988, Prop 103 requires all insurance rates for auto and homeowners' coverage be reviewed and approved by CDI.

However, the rules governing that process have allowed groups who intervene in the process, ostensibly on behalf of consumers, to collect fees, if they make a "substantial contribution" to the review proceedings.

In recent years, however, critics from throughout the business community and elsewhere have called for reforms to that process, particularly questioning the value obtained from the intervenors' alleged contributions.

Last fall, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara backed such reforms, saying they were needed to "enhance transparency, fairness, and accountability in the rate review process."

Lara indicated he shared businesses' concerns that the current intervenor system contributes to significant delays and worsens California's ongoing "insurance crisis."

"California’s insurance crisis demands tough decisions and accountability from everyone involved – insurance companies, intervenors, and the Department itself,” Lara said in September 2025. “To stabilize our market, we need a rate review system that delivers timely, fair, accurate, and thorough decisions, rather than one that gets bogged down in process or delays real solutions.”

In a letter supporting those reforms, a coalition of California business groups indicated CDI data showed an already-slow insurance rate review process grows from 256 days for approval, without intervenor involvement, to 529 days, on average, when intervenors get involved.

Under Prop 103, such reviews are only supposed to take 60 days, they noted.

"This self-serving provision rewards delay over real solutions — and Californians are paying the price," the coalition said.

"... When Consumer Watchdog delays rate approvals for its own financial gain, insurance premiums fail to reflect the true cost of covering claims. This leads to shrinking access to coverage and increased costs for consumers, further straining California’s already struggling insurance market."

In response, Consumer Watchdog asserted the fees shouldn't be viewed in isolation. Rather, they urged the public to view them as a relatively small compensation for the group's work to allegedly help Californians save money.

Consumer Watchdog asserted their interventions "saved consumers $2.35 billion" in 2025. They asserted their fees amounted to "6 cents per $100 saved."

They claimed the 2025 fees included fees that the CDI had allegedly withheld in some cases dating back to 2022.

“The intervenor process has the biggest bang for the buck of any consumer protection system in America," said Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court in a released statement.