It’s not just State Farm that has so far refused to reimburse the money paid when the rates were based on driving habits before the pandemic. So far, state insurance commissioner Richard Lara has asked companies for $ 5.5 billion in voluntary rebates, but only $ 1.9 billion has been paid. State Farm’s share of the $ 3.6 billion unpaid balance owed to nearly all drivers in California is about $ 100 million. The company wants to prevent this payment from becoming compulsory.

This is an area where some of the cost of living in California is expected to be lower than anywhere else. No other state limits rate increases and allows refunds when warranted.

But the appeal ruling maintains that voters in 1988 never intended to allow the Insurance Commissioner to order refunds, as Lara and several previous Commissioners have done.

Voters, the ruling said, were “not concerned about rate manipulation.”

This was an absurd claim, since Proposition 103 relates almost exclusively to this infamous practice.

“We wanted to prevent people from being robbed by insurance companies,” said Harvey Rosenfield, the Consumer Watchdog lawyer who drafted the law. “So this decision couldn’t have hurt the subject more. “

Rosenfield is appealing the decision to the state Supreme Court, citing two previous court decisions that unanimously upheld the insurance commissioner’s right to order justified reimbursements.

But it is not certain that the highest court in the state will even take up the case, as several new judges have arrived since the most recent ruling on the issue, raised repeatedly by insurance companies. hoping to get a statewide decision exactly like the one in San Diego.

Californians adopted Proposition 103 to protect against arbitrary rates and discriminatory practices by requiring insurance companies to maintain fair rates and premiums at all times or to be accountable to the Insurance Commissioner “said Rosenfield.

But State Farm, Mercury Insurance, and some other companies have never stopped trying to reduce California’s insurance law to something like what applies elsewhere.

So far, this effort has failed. But the insurance industry, always short of lawyers, continues to fight, and the San Diego decision is the most favorable the companies have ever won.

The question of whether insurance commissioners can order reimbursements is important, but it is nowhere near as vital as Proposition 103 which gives the commissioner review power over rate increases, a provision that would be threatened if this decision prevailed.

Surprisingly, the San Diego court ruled that Proposition 103 was never intended to protect consumers – although this has been the entire theme of the Proposition 103 campaign and its enforcement for over 30 years. On the contrary, the court said voters intended to protect insurance companies.

Now the only people who can overturn this astonishing and unfounded conclusion are the seven justices of the state’s Supreme Court.

By chance, three of them – Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Judge Martin Jenkins and Judge Joshua Groban – are due to be approved or rejected by voters next fall.

All three will be subject to yes or no votes on whether each should be allowed to serve an additional 12 years. If the no prevails over one of them, this justice would be abolished and replaced by a new person appointed by the one who wins the simultaneous vote for the governor.

Of course, the yes or no votes should largely depend on how the judges rule on Proposition 103. That’s because any judge voting not to take the case or to uphold the San Diego decision. essentially sounds like the will of the voters matters. for nothing.