Harvey Rosenfield
New data from the California Department of Insurance shows a consumer advocacy group collected $1.4 million in fees in 2025 through the state’s rate intervention program.
The group — Consumer Watchdog — collected 96.78% of the funds awarded through the program last year. Only one other group, the Consumer Federation of California Education Foundation, received intervenor fees, and they made just $47,500.
The intervenor program has proven controversial over the years. Unique to California, the program allows consumer groups and individuals to participate in state regulatory proceedings, particularly those involving rate increases.
Intervening parties can then recover their costs, fees and attorney’s expenses from insurers, who are authorized to pass along those costs to their policyholders.
The intervenor fee program was written into Prop. 103 by Harvey Rosenfield, Consumer Watchdog’s founder. The group charges roughly $650 per hour to intervene in rate filings, and since the program’s inception in 2013, it has collected more than $11.2 million in fees from the state.
“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 statement. “This self-serving provision rewards delay over real solutions — and Californian consumers are paying the price, literally.”
Ricardo Lara, California’s insurance commissioner, rolled out a proposal to reform the intervenor program in September. The reforms would clarify the “substantial contribution” standard required for intervenor compensation. They would also seek to add transparency — requiring public reporting on intervenor activity and compensation, for example — and reduce delays associated with the intervention process.
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