California Insurance Commissioner Candidates Debate Solutions to Wildfire-Driven Crisis

Candidates vying for the position of state insurance commissioner in the June primary election met at a forum in downtown San Francisco on Thursday to make the case for why they’re right for the job.

The normally sleepy race is attracting a lot of attention as wildfires and inflation have caused a crisis in the state’s home insurance market — where coverage can be both difficult to obtain and costly.

The state’s insurance commissioner has the primary job of setting the rules insurance companies need to follow in the state. It’s a role currently held by Ricardo Lara, who is termed out in November.

Asked about what would be considered a benchmark for success, state Sen. Ben Allen said with a laugh, “One real benchmark would be that there would be less interest in the insurance commissioners’ position. Because it’s always been kind of under-the-radar. It’s become so high-profile because of all the problems that we have.”

The future commissioner will need to balance requirements for insurance companies with being business-friendly enough that companies still want to sell policies in California.

They will also face widespread problems with the FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, and concerns about how to keep a healthy insurance market amid the acceleration of climate-fueled disasters.

“I think everyone wants the insurance Commissioner’s position to go back to just doing work as opposed to this existential crisis that we’re in right now,” Allen said.

Most candidates expressed similar aims, with varying plans for how to achieve them. Ideas ranged from creating a public disaster insurance program to securing more money to help neighborhoods harden homes against fires.

Eight candidates will be on the ballot for the June primary, with the top two advancing to the November general election. Five of those were in attendance at the Thursday forum hosted by SPUR, the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association — a nonprofit public policy organization.

Allen represents portions of Los Angeles that were affected by last year’s fires. He spoke of bills he’d authored to improve consumer and environmental protections, including Proposition 4, a $10 billion bond passed in 2024 that provides money for climate resilience, including wildfire prevention.

He spoke of the need to focus on community-wide fire risk reduction and push insurance companies to better support customers.

Steven Bradford, former State Assemblymember and Senator, highlighted the need to give the Department of Insurance more resources and more modern tools. He also spoke of wanting to have the department approve rate adjustments more quickly and for insurance companies to be more transparent in their rate-making.

Merritt Farren, a media and technology executive, lost his home in LA during the fires and was part of fighting State Farm’s recent rate hikes in court.

He spoke of his experience working for Disney and Amazon, saying these companies could provide inspiration for simplifying the process of regulating and buying insurance and creating new tech jobs.

He also proposed a public reinsurance program, modeled after Florida’s catastrophe fund for hurricanes and the U.K.’s public–private reinsurance program for floods.

Jane Kim, a former San Francisco supervisor, perhaps had the most concrete suggestions for radical change.

She proposed creating a single-payer public disaster insurance program run by the state, which would guarantee coverage and be modeled on programs in France, Spain and New Zealand.

Beyond home insurance, she suggested expanding the low-cost nonprofit auto insurance program created by the legislature in 1999 and guaranteeing healthcare for every child in California. “I think California can do it,” she said.

Patrick Wolff, a financial analyst, worked in the 2000s building an insurance brokerage for a bank, which, he said, gave him insights into how the industry operates.

He suggested the FAIR Plan should have broader coverage and said the state was starting to make progress in allowing companies “to operate more economically and effectively, but there’s a lot more that needs to be done.”