SAN DIEGO -- State insurance commissioner John Garamendi will tackle a key consumer issue Tuesday -- how your car insurance rates are calculated, 10News reported.

Rates are partially based on your driving record, the number of miles you drive every year and your driving experience. However, state regulations also allow insurers to base their auto premiums on a policyholder's ZIP code and gender or marital status.

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"In 1996, my predecessor Chuck Quackenbush wrote regulations that insurance companies wanted and gave them the power to use these ZIP codes to determine how much you are going to pay. I just think it's grossly unfair," Garamendi said.

Garamendi and consumer advocates calls the loophole in the law discrimination and hits poorer people the hardest.

"The use of the ZIP code craves out a very special part of the community and inevitable, it turns out it (is) the low-income, minority community that winds up paying a whole lot more than just across the street in another ZIP code," Garamendi said.

As a result, people who live in higher income areas in San Diego County, such as Poway, east Chula Vista, La Jolla and Coronado pay less for car insurance. People who live in communities like west Chula Vista, City Heights, National City, Webster and Barrio Logan pay more.

Garamendi said Proposition 103 was supposed to end the discrimination.

"We need to make some sense of it so that this kind of discrimination seizes and take into consider Proposition 103 -- which says good driving, miles driven and experience are the predominant factors, not just where you live," Garamendi said.

Insurance companies said the proposal will only mean higher premiums for most good drivers in California because rates in richer areas will rise, as opposed to rates going down in poorer areas.

San Diegans can speak out about the issue Tuesday night at a Town Hall meeting with Garamendi.

The event is being held at the Jacobs Center for Non-Profit Innovation at 5160 Federal Blvd. in Chollas Creek and starts at 6 p.m.

For more information about the meeting, call (213) 346-6887.