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By Benjamin Allen, especially for CalMatters
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Guest Comment written by
As the first anniversary of Southern California’s devastating wildfires approaches, CalMatters asked candidates for the 2026 state insurance commissioner race to share thoughts on what the state can do to help victims and stabilize insurers. This is the second answer. Read the other candidate’s answer here.
Reports began to come in: A fast-moving fire was tearing through the Palisades. The families I grew up with and had represented in the State Senate for over a decade were told to evacuate with only a minute’s notice. We had just started the new legislative session in Sacramento, but I knew I had to get home.
As I headed into the city, the sky was lit up by fire. The flame was bright, red and hot. The column of smoke stretched for miles. We evacuated my mother, packed a travel bag and came up with contingency plans.
On the ground it felt like a war zone. Ash covered the streets. The toxic smell of burnt homes wafted everywhere. People stood outside evacuation centers staring at their phones, hoping for news to tell them if they still had a home to return to.
In the following days, my office was flooded with calls. Homeowners. Tenants. Pensioners on fixed incomes. People in mobile home parks who had lost everything and feared not only the cost of rebuilding, but the complete loss of their property rights.
I heard the same questions over and over again: Will my insurance pay? How long will this take? What if it doesn’t?
I got a front row seat to the dysfunction of our current insurance system. Our work has moved from helping people in the immediate aftermath of the fire to considering wider policy changes. It was this visceral experience of what so many of my friends, neighbors and constituents went through that led me to run for California Insurance Commissioner.
In the California State Senate, I’ve built a reputation for tackling tough issues, and perhaps no issue in our state is as vexing as fixing our insurance system. It is a system under great strain, with the consequences falling hardest on those least able to bear them.
Stabilizing the market, protecting payers, and determining the FAIR plan are not abstract political goals. They are essential if California is to remain a place where people can live safely and securely. The current trajectory of the system threatens the future of our quality of life. And God forbid a disaster happens, California should be a place where people can rebuild after that instead of being kicked out.
Stabilization of the insurance market
Insurers need security to operate in California. Today, insurance companies wait years to get answers from the state, creating instability that prompts them to limit coverage or exit the market.
We need to modernize the way the state reviews insurance rates while maintaining strong consumer protections. That means allowing the responsible use of modern tools to predict wildfire risk and account for the actual cost of coverage, while dramatically speeding up state timelines so that decisions are made in months, not years.
Faster does not mean weaker. This means clearer standards, better data and accountability from all parties. Stability also requires reducing real-world risk. Fireproofing works, but insurers assess risk at the community level.
As insurance commissioner, I would push for neighborhood fire prevention and risk reduction programs that reduce losses in entire communities and allow insurers to write responsible policies again. Many parts of the state are already implementing these programs and they are working. We need to scale them – and fast.
Protect users
Californians already face unaffordable housing, utilities and insurance. They deserve trust that any rate increase is justified and transparent. California law gives the insurance commissioner authority to reject unfair rate increases, and I will use that authority aggressively.
Protecting payers also means protecting people after disasters. After the Palisades fire, I saw families forced to navigate slow and opaque claims systems as they tried to rebuild their lives. That’s why I wrote law requiring insurers to provide significantly higher upfront payments for personal property when the home is a total loss, rather than forcing survivors to list every possession.
We know we need to do more. Among many things, we are currently considering legislation that would create greater clarity and certainty with certain types of insurance coverage, including smoke damage after a fire.
Reform the FAIR plan
The FAIR plan, the state’s backup insurer of last resort, was supposed to be temporary, but has so far tripled in size cover 450,000 home policy holders. The program raises costs for all Californians who are asked to save it.
In the short term, the FAIR plan needs to be solvent and able to pay claims promptly, with improved governance and transparency.
In the long run, it should shrink. Homeowners who invest in making their homes safer should have a real path back to the private market with assurances that they can regain coverage if their communities become fire safe. Nor should we build uninsurable new developments that are simply designed for the FAIR plan and further public bailouts.
Standing in the Palisades, surrounded by smoke and uncertainty, it was clear what failure looked like. Insurance is not just a financial product; this is the basis of recovery. Stabilizing the market, protecting payers and defining the FAIR plan are difficult challenges, but they are solvable.
Candidate guest comments are published in the order they are received.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.