Two Free Checks Worth Doing Once

Insurance is sold by people you often meet on the phone, for a product you cannot inspect, backed by a company whose name may be unfamiliar. California publishes the information that resolves all of that, free, and almost nobody looks. Here is how, and when it is worth bothering.

Check one: the company

The California Department of Insurance publishes the license status of insurance companies at insurance.ca.gov. Look up the company on the declarations page — the actual issuing insurer, not the brand in the advertising, because most groups write through several licensed companies with names you will not recognize from television.

What you are confirming is that the company is licensed to transact business in California. That single fact brings it inside the state's regulatory framework and its guarantee arrangements.

Check two: the person

The same site publishes license status for agents and brokers. You can look up the individual or the agency by name or license number. A California license number should appear on their written materials as a matter of course — ours appears on every page of this site.

When it is genuinely worth doing

• Any time the contact came to you rather than you going to them — a cold call, a text, a social media message.
• Any time the price is dramatically better than everything else you have seen, without a coverage difference to explain it.
• Any time you are asked to pay a person or an unfamiliar entity rather than the insurance company.
• Any time the company name is one you have never encountered.

The warning signs that should send you to the lookup

Pressure to decide immediately. Reluctance to put coverage terms in writing. A request for payment by a method with no recourse. A policy document that does not name an insurer clearly. None of these is proof of anything on its own; all of them are reasons to spend two minutes with the regulator's site before spending money.

If something is wrong

The Department of Insurance takes complaints about licensed producers and about unlicensed activity, and the current process and consumer hotline are published on its site. The complaint route is worth knowing about before you need it.

We are a licensed California brokerage and our license number is at the bottom of this page — check it, and check anyone else you are considering.