About 30 auto insurers will be ready to change their rates in Georgia without state approval if Gov. Sonny Perdue signs a bill passed by the Legislature in March.

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Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, whose office has about 30 rate-change cases pending, is worried the bill would lead to skyrocketing auto insurance premiums.

He has asked the governor to veto the measure, which would allow companies to raise some auto insurance rates without first getting the approval of state regulators.

"In the future, if they know they can get whatever they want, the sky is the limit," Oxendine said, citing one company that is requesting a 63 percent increase on some customers.

But others say the market has changed dramatically since the 1980s, when a similar law brought big premium increases. Many drivers now shop for auto insurance online, where they can compare rates.

Allie Wall, executive director of the Atlanta consumer group Georgia Watch, said consumers have more choices now.

"Do I think, like Oxendine, that rates are going to skyrocket? No," Wall said. "I think you have a lot of competition here, and you've got relative ease when it comes to shopping around for a new carrier if rates go up unexpectedly."

Insurers have been trying for years to get lawmakers to change the prior-approval law, arguing that they needed the flexibility to change rates quickly. Bills to change the law regularly stalled in the past.

However this year, House Insurance Chairman Tom Knox (R-Cumming) tacked the change onto Senate Bill 276 while it was in a House subcommittee. Moving with speed seldom seen on such controversial legislation, it zipped through both chambers one day in March with little discussion.

Under the bill, the commissioner would still approve rates for the minimum mandatory liability coverage. But Oxendine said 90 percent of drivers have coverage that exceeds the minimum. Critics of the bill also say it would make it virtually impossible for Oxendine to rule after the fact that rates put in by insurers are excessive.

Under current law, the commissioner and his staff review rate filings, and he decides whether the companies get what they want. In some cases, he gives them smaller rate increases than they request.

As an example of the kind of cases he has pending, Oxendine cited a request by 21st Century Insurance Group, a subsidiary of mega-insurer AIG. It has a pending rate increase that averages 17.4 percent, with some customers potentially seeing rates rise 30 percent. AIG's lobbyists backed the changes proposed by Senate Bill 276.

Oxendine said another company, Amica Mutual Insurance, is asking for increases of 63 percent on some drivers. A third, American National, wants 120 percent increases on some motorcycle owners. However, in those cases, the average rates would go down, so many drivers could see lower costs if the filings are approved.

A report out last week from the Consumer Federation of America suggested that consumers are better off in states that force insurers to get advance approval from regulators before they change rates.

From 1989 through 2005, auto insurance expenses generally rose slower in the 15 states that require prior approval of rates, the group found. In Georgia, insurance expenses for drivers rose 47.6 percent, which was slightly below the national average. Expenses rose more than 100 percent in some states that don't mandate insurers get the prior approval of states.

"It is very clear that consumers fare best under a system of prior approval of insurance rates," said J. Robert Hunter, the group's director of insurance and a former state and federal insurance regulator. "It is also clear that as regulation is weakened, insurance consumers are worse off."

Perdue has not said whether he'll sign the bill. However, after it passed in March, the governor told reporters, "I have got some concerns, based on what I hear, and we'll look at it very carefully."

Perdue was a state senator when lawmakers put the current system into effect.

During the 1980s, the state allowed insurers to charge new rates before the commissioner approved them, but rising premiums brought a political backlash and became an issue in the 1990 campaigns. The insurance commissioner at the time was ousted by voters. The next year, Gov. Zell Miller and the new commissioner, Tim Ryles, pushed through prior-approval legislation.

Sen. Steve Thompson (D-Marietta) remembers what it was like in the 1980s, and he voted against Senate Bill 276 when it was brought up for final approval in March.

"I still don't think you ought to take it away from someone with oversight," Thompson said. "It doesn't make sense to me to let them automatically increase their rates."

But Sen. Cecil Staton (R-Macon), whose bill was amended to include the "no-prior approval provisions," said he supports the measure because it "brings free-market principles" into the pricing of auto insurance.

He said Oxendine "is ultimately concerned about his influence and his power and the power he wields over the insurance companies of this state."

Oxendine recently announced plans to run for governor in 2010. That, Staton suspects, has a lot to do with his very public stand against Senate Bill 276.

"I think this is grandstanding," Staton said. "I think he is trying to sound the alarm for a fire that doesn't exist. He is in campaign mode."