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1. The insurance billionaire who has spent $16.5 million on
Prop 33 finally admitted in a Sunday Los Angeles Times
column by Mike Hiltzik that he is financing the initiative so
can raise car insurance rates on newly insured customers.

2. Consumer groups have long warned voters that such a
proposal is designed to allow Mercury Insurance, whose
Chairman George Joseph is the 99% funder of Prop 33, to
raise rates on good drivers who have legitimate reasons
for lapses in auto insurance coverage, like they stopped
driving. The Prop 33 campaign has vehemently denied that
rates will go up on drivers, not only in widespread
advertising but also in debates over the weekend on
KNBC's Sunday show News Conference and KGO radio.

3. The billionaire Joseph however acknowledged to the Los
Angeles Times that Prop 33 is a vital marketing strategy for
his insurance company that will allow him to cherry pick
his customers "if I could charge new people the proper
rate." As Hiltzik reports, "He made no bones about the
fact that the 'proper rate' for customers coming to
Mercury as newly insured policyholders is much higher
than what he can charge them now."

4. By increasing the price of insurance for new
drivers, Proposition 33 will make it harder for Californians
to obtain insurance - exposing as false another claim of
Consumer Alert: Big Lies Behind Insurer-Backed Prop 33
TV Ads, that it would insure more drivers.

5. "When the billionaire writing the $16 million check for
Prop 33 speaks about his initiative raising auto insurance
rates, the voters should listen," said Jamie
Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "Poll-driven
advertising for Prop 33 blasted across the state
deceptively claims Prop 33 is about rewarding responsible
drivers, but the billionaire writing the check acknowledged
this is about raising rates on responsible drivers too when
they are on the wrong side of his insurance company's
marketing strategy."

6. Voters banned the power of insurance companies to raise
rates on first time drivers and others who did not
previously have auto insurance in 1988 because insurance
companies were using that power to refuse to insure
drivers, often in low-income and minority
communities, they didn't think would be good customers.
Since the reform, California has become the 4th most
competitive auto insurance market in America.

7. When Mercury Insurance was illegally using Prop 33's
"continuous coverage" rating factor in the late 1990s, its
web site quoted customers rates that were 41% higher
because they did not drive a car previously.

8. Consumer Watchdog called on Joseph and the Prop 33
campaign to change their misleading advertising to
appropriately characterize Prop 33's impact on drivers.

9. Joseph's Mercury Insurance company spent $16 million
on a nearly identical ballot measure in 2010, Proposition
17, that was rejected by the voters.

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