Texas Watch—Consumer Protection. Corporate Accountability. Citizen Advocacy.

AUSTIN — Nearly 350,000 Texas homeowners insured by Farmers Insurance will see their premiums jump by nearly 10 percent beginning next month after state Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman decided not to object to the increase.

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A consumer group immediately criticized the commissioner for the Farmers decision and noted that Kitzman already has approved a rate hike for State Farm, which included a higher minimum deductible for its homeowners policies.

“So far, Eleanor Kitzman hasn’t met a rate hike she didn’t like,” said Alex Winslow of Texas Watch.

Winslow said Texas homeowners continue to get less insurance protection for more money as companies restrict what losses they will cover. He pointed out that Allstate and USAA also have increased their rates this year.

Read More: The Dallas Morning News (subscription required)

The poorest Americans are unable to buy affordable auto insurance because of insurance company bias, a consumers group charged Monday.

Insurance companies are prohibited from basing premiums on income, but can consider a driver’s credit rating, home address and occupation. Those factors are essentially surrogates for income, according to the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer lobby group in Washington, D.C.

“In some areas, many responsible lower-income drivers are required to spend more than $1,000 a year for liability coverage that is often unfairly priced and provides no real insurance protection to them,” said Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the consumer group. He called on states to improve access to low-cost insurance. California is currently the only state with a robust low-rate coverage program.

Read More: The Huffington Post

AUSTIN — The high cost of fixing damaged cars and trucks in Texas has pushed up the price of auto insurance in the state to 11th highest in the nation, according to a new study analyzing premiums across the country.

The study by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners shows that the price of collision coverage — the portion of an insurance policy that pays to repair damage after an accident — has been climbing in Texas and now ranks as the fifth highest among the states.

By contrast, the amount paid for liability coverage — which has been a target for advocates of limiting lawsuits — ranks 20th among the states.

Read More: The Dallas Morning News (subscription required)

The Texas Supreme Court has a profound effect on the everyday lives of Texans. It is the court of last resort for non-criminal matters in the state. But according to a scathing report released this week by the advocacy group Texas Watch, over the last 10 years, the majority of Texas Supreme Court decisions have favored corporate interests over consumers. And the panel of judges, according to the report, has repeatedly overstepped its authority by overturning jury verdicts and interpreting the law to benefit the rich.

Listen: Texas Public Radio (Texas Matters, Segment 3)

Last August, ThinkProgress highlighted a Texas Watch report showing that the Texas Supreme Court “sided with consumers in 27 percent of cases involving an individual against a corporation or government agency — and it reversed jury verdicts in 72 percent of cases.” A new report by that same organization shows that the court’s favoritism towards corporations is now even worse.

Read More: ThinkProgress

Listen to Court Watch director Alex Winslow talk about Court Watch’s latest report with Kristen Flowers of KTRH radio in Houston.

“Texas families deserve a fair shake when they go to the courthouse. And, when they make it to the highest court in the land, they’re just not getting that fair shake.”

Woe is the injured consumer or medical patient in Texas who brings a lawsuit against a big corporation or the government. A new report out from the nonprofit advocacy group Texas Watch has taken a hard look at more than 600 decisions by the Texas Supreme Court over the past decade and found that consumers and plaintiffs are routinely taking it on the chin. And consumers are losing far more often in the court than they were before short-lived GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry became governor.

Since 2005, consumers have lost nearly 80 percent of Texas Supreme Court cases in which a consumer was pitted against a big corporation or the government. Most of the time, the consumer plaintiffs had already prevailed before a jury—the high court overturned jury verdicts in 74 percent of consumer cases, with very little dissent.

Texas Watch attributes the massive scale-tilting to the fact that the court is now dominated by judges who were appointed by Perry starting in 2000. Six of the nine judges on the all-Republican court were initially appointed by Perry. In Texas, the judges are elected, but when a vacancy occurs, a governor can appoint a judge to fill out the remaining term, a move that all but guarantees the judge will prevail in the general election. And in Texas, Republican judges who’ve wanted to retire have often done so mid-term, allowing Perry to appoint their replacements.

Read More: Mother Jones

The Texas Supreme Court over the last decade has morphed into an activist court driven by ideoloy and acting to benefit corporate interests, according to a report released today by consumer advocacy group Texas Watch.

The scathing report is the result of a review of 264 court decisions over the past 10 years and paints a picture of a court concerned only with giving more power to the powerful and trampling on the interests of Texas families in the process. The 9-judge panel, all Republican, “employs twisted logic and eviscerates long-standing precedent to achieve poltiical ends,” the report says.

Texas Watch found that when Gov. Rick Perry began making appointments in 2000, his picks made the court decidely more pro-business than it had been under George W. Bush, “subverting the rule of law from within and effectively turning the granite walls of the court into a mausoleum for plaintiffs.”

Read More: The Dallas Morning News

Our new report about the Texas Supreme Court’s pro-defendant record is already getting attention from the media. Check out the story from the Texas Tribune and take a listen to Texas Watch’s executive director Alex Winslow discuss the report’s findings with Scott Braddock on News 92fm this morning. Read More »