"It has been proven time and time again that the courts will not allow a rate rollback arbitrarily," he said.

If we were to conclude that California's rate rollback had a long life, it would be a conclusion that this country is abandoning important economic principles.

She noted that an auto-insurance rate rollback that was passed with great fanfare two years ago had been in the courts ever since.

The measure, together with court rulings, requires rate rollbacks based on the profitability of the insurers.

But Ms. Gillespie said today that all insurers seeking exemptions from the rate rollbacks would now face additional scrutiny.

Auto insurance lines have their own problems, among them rate rollbacks by the states and soaring jury awards and medical costs.

It calls for rate rollbacks on automobile and other forms of property and casualty insurance.

More recently, the regulator ordered two successive rate rollbacks in 2011 (0.4%) and 2012 (0.5%).

And while profits fell last year because of to a special provision for auto-insurance rate rollbacks in California, the overall trend has been positive.

"You can't have rate rollbacks as a long-term solution," she said, "without having cost reform go along with it."