RATE FREEZE FOR CALIFORNIA AUTO INSURANCE

California's insurance commissioner put an immediate six-month freeze on auto insurance rates and said she would set the size of voter-mandated rate rollbacks by the end of the year. Commissioner Roxani Gillespie said Monday she ordered the freeze partly in response to an announcement last week by Farmers Insurance Group that it would raise auto rates by 5.9 percent Nov. 1 - one week before Proposition 103 gives the state authority to veto rate increases.