CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : CALIFORNIA : Judge Delays Rate Hike by Insurer

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Miriam A. Vogel declined to act immediately on a bid by attorneys for the Metropolitan Property and Liability Insurance Co. to get a court order allowing the firm to raise its rates by 20%, despite Insurance Commissioner Roxani Gillespie’s 4-month-old freeze on auto insurance rate increases. Vogel declined to hear the matter immediately, since all cases related to Proposition 103 are supposed to be consolidated in a single court as early as next week. Kent Keller, an attorney for the Rhode Island-based carrier that does $24 million in annual auto insurance business in California, said the company is actually losing $16 million a year in California, but in the interest of competition, would not want to raise its rates too high.