The Department of Insurance for California does not mention that insurance companies can only look at your driving record for three years. Generally insurance companies can go back three, five or seven years to look at a person's driving history.

In California, most minor traffic convictions remain on your record for 3 years while major traffic offenses can stay on your record for 7 years or more. Many insurance companies will look three years back on a driver's history for minor infractions but will look back for major violations, i.e. DUI, for a longer period of time, such as seven years.

On applications for auto insurance many companies will request information on previous accidents and traffic violations and indicate how many years proceeding the application date they will want you to list. If they request more than 3 years back, then you will need to list the accident and/or moving violation that occurred during the time frame they requested information on.

If you want more information on this topic contact the CA Department of Insurance or Department of Motor Vehicles.