As high temperatures bake California and strong winds make it more susceptible to fire, voters in the state are being wooed by political candidates with divergent visions for how to protect homes from stepped-up climate risks.
California has the nation’s largest home insurance market, according to McKinsey & Co., worth $15 billion. Jane Kim argues that the market has failed and the state
should assume responsibility for the costliest climate disasters. Ben Allen says the private market can still work if regulators strengthen consumer protections and create i
ncentives for homeowners and communities to reduce wildfire risk.
Those competing philosophies are facing off in California’s race for insurance commissioner, after Kim and Allen emerged from an 11-candidate primary to advance to the November election.
The clash between the two Democrats wouldn’t typically be a marquee race. But this election comes with higher stakes, now that insurance is one of Cal
ifornia’s most pressing affordability issues. Even before the devastating 2025 Los Angeles fires, insurers had withdrawn from parts of the state, non-renewa
ls of policies were widespread and premiums had increased steeply. The LA fires then left thousands of homeowners confronting the question of whether they ha
d adequate coverage — or any coverage at all.
California may be the epicenter of the insurance meltdown, but it is hardly alone. Home
owners around the country are facing rising rates as climate-driven disasters become more frequent and expensive, turning what was once a niche regulatory issue into a broader political one.
“Home affordability is a central issue in many elections,” said Benjamin Collier, a University of Wisconsin at Madison economist. “Rising premiums are bringing insurance into that discussion.”
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California’s Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat, last year introduced legislation in Congress that would create a federally backed catastrophe reinsuranc
e program, which would help absorb the largest disaster losses borne by private insurance companies. (Collier and academic colleagues have suggested a similar measure.)
But barring a new national law, states will have to figure out their own solutions. Because California has often served as a proving ground for insurance regulation, t
he outcome of the commissioner race could resonate well beyond its borders.
Kim is a former San Francisco supervisor who served as California political director for Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, during his 2020 presiden
tial campaign and who later led the California Working Families Party. She sees the insurance crisis as pa
rt of a broader affordability challenge that demands a larger role for government. Climate chan
ge has fundamentally broken the home insurance market, she argues, and incremental reforms are no longer enough.
“The private insurance market is not designed to address climate disaster,” Kim said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
