Wildfires and other climate catastrophes have exacerbated California's already precarious insurance market. Seven of the 11 candidates running in the June 2 primary for insurance commissioner spoke about using property insurance data to help manage the climate crises, rewarding risk mitigation efforts and the effectiveness of legislation. This is the last of a four-part series, with other parts covering
How can property-insurance data and information,
Ben Allen (D): Property-insurance data can help regulators move from reacting to crises to identifying growing risk, disappearing coverage and which communities are hit hardest. NAIC data can show premium trends, nonrenewals, claims, losses, insurer withdrawals, FAIR Plan reliance and availability. That is important, as wildfire and severe weather risks become more frequent and costly. But the data should help regulators understand risk and market stress, not simply justify higher rates. I would use the data to target mitigation investments, identify coverage gaps, improve consumer protections and hold insurers accountable. Data should help us reduce risk and keep people insured, not just document the crisis after the fact.
Keith Davis (Ind.): I think one of the biggest mistakes we can make is letting data replace common sense. Data is important, and it can absolutely help us understand wildfire and climate risks better, but numbers on a spreadsheet do not always tell the full story of a community or a homeowner. What worries me is when massive climate models start being treated like guaranteed outcomes and entire neighborhoods get labeled too risky overnight. Data should be used to help people prepare, strengthen homes and stabilize the market, not just become another excuse for higher rates, non-renewals and fear among consumers.
Merritt Farren (R): I see the estimation of climate-change impacts on risk as something to be handled in the first instance by insurance providers in connection with their general risk assessment. That, of course, needs to be figured into the rate establishment process.
Jane Kim (D): Aggregated property-insurance data can reveal where climate risk is concentrated and where markets are failing, but must be layered with other climate and risk data for a fuller picture. Under a single-payer, Disaster Insurance for All system, aggregated data — including NAIC data — can be used to determine how to mitigate climate risk. This can protect homes and communities from disasters while saving the state money. As commissioner, I will also use this data to identify communities losing access to coverage and hold insurers accountable to coverage commitments. Transparency is both a consumer protection tool and a climate-adaptation tool.
Stacy Korsgaden (R): Property insurance data collected by NAIC can be a roadmap, but it has to be matched with accountability. A huge share of California's high-risk land is owned or controlled by state and federal governments, which means they help shape the very wildfire, flood and drought risks driving our insurance crisis. When that data shows where premiums are spiking and claims are mounting, Sacramento and Washington must treat it as a performance review of their own forest, water and land management decisions. They should be held to the same standard as private owners in reducing risk and hardening communities.
Eduardo "Lalo" Vargas (Socialist): To address the insurance crisis, the next commissioner must have a deep understanding of climate change, wildfire risk and experience working with populations who have been victims of climate catastrophe. As an environmental science teacher, former firefighter and first responder, I would bring subject-matter expertise about soil composition, remediation, toxicology, forestry, particulate matter pollution and its effects on human health into the Department of Insurance. The data from NAIC would help supplement my knowledge about the climate crisis and build programs for lowering risk for policyholders.
Patrick Wolff (D): I completely agree with the insurance commissioners quoted in the linked article that this data could be very valuable to the public in helping to quantify the magnitude and cost of some of the effects of climate change. I see (at least) three key ways insurance regulation can make insurance companies address climate risk: (1) adequate risk pricing of climate risk; (2) capturing and sharing climate-risk data; (3) climate-responsible investments. This most recent data call is a perfect example of the second element, and I view it as a very positive development.
Has the
Ben Allen: The program is promising because it creates a clearer standard for home hardening and defensible space. But it has not meaningfully lowered premiums or covered enough properties. Mitigation is still not consistently reflected in underwriting and pricing. Homeowners can spend to harden their homes and still face nonrenewal, a major rate increase or being pushed into the FAIR Plan. Insurers should be required to give credit for verified mitigation. Consumers should get plain-language explanations of what actions would keep or regain coverage. The state should expand financial assistance for home hardening. Mitigation only works as an insurance policy if consumers see a real benefit.
Keith Davis: It's definitely a step in the right direction, because homeowners who spend money making their homes safer from wildfires should actually get credit for it. The problem is a lot of people are still doing all this mitigation work and not really seeing enough benefit when it comes to pricing or keeping coverage. If we really want people to harden their homes and reduce risk, then the insurance companies need to reward that in a real way. If someone lowers the risk, they should have a better chance at lower premiums and keeping their insurance.
Merritt Farren: The data suggests that it has not been successful. Rates continue to go up and many continue to be pushed onto the FAIR Plan. Again, a more comprehensive rewriting of our rate approval and of our community security obligations needs to be done to put in place a working program that rewards communities and individual property owners for fire hardening and fire-risk suppression.
Jane Kim: The IBHS Wildfire Prepared Program is a great idea that has shown promise in identifying and communicating mitigation standards. Unfortunately it hasn't translated consistently into premium reductions or renewed coverage for homeowners. Insurers retain discretion over whether and how to reward mitigation, which limits effectiveness. Under a Disaster Insurance for All program, wildfire mitigation would be rewarded, and homeowners would save money by participating. It would also save taxpayer dollars by reducing everyone's risk and making our communities safer. We must help homeowners and communities afford hardening to begin with, starting with a system that consistently rewards efforts to lower risk.
Stacy Korsgaden: Yes, the IBHS Wildfire Prepared Program has raised awareness and set a strong standard, and I believe it will be increasingly valuable over time. But home hardening alone has not been enough to stabilize prices or coverage, because California has not reduced its wider, mitigable risks. This is a group effort: state and federal land managers, utilities, local governments, and homeowners all have to act together. When we combine serious landscape level mitigation with IBHS-level home upgrades, the benefits in availability and affordability will really start to show.
Eduardo "Lalo" Vargas: To truly lower risk and premiums, we will need a strategy that focuses on community hardening not just individual hardening. Mitigation efforts must be supported by the state and include all homeowners in high-fire-risk areas so an entire community is fortified, not just an individual home. The state must also do its part to defeat climate change by inaugurating a rapid transition to renewable energy.
Patrick Wolff: The Safer from Wildfires program has not been effective. There are two problems. First: the guidelines have not been close enough to the science, and the mandated discounts have been item-by-item instead of for a whole set of actions, which is what really reduces risk. A recent study by the California Earthquake Authority's Wildfire Fund Administrator suggested reforms to the program to address this, which I support. Second: the incentives can be improved. It is better to require insurers to tell us what will reduce risk, and mandate they offer discounts, rather than tell them what to offer discounts for.
Do you see the recently passed and proposed legislation that followed the January 2025 wildfires as
Ben Allen: Some of the legislation is responsive, especially bills about claims handling, faster payments, temporary living expenses, rebuilding, underinsurance and consumer protections. We need to keep coverage available, reduce wildfire risk, make mitigation affordable and ensure the FAIR Plan does not become the default insurer for large parts of California. I would propose five new goals: stronger claims enforcement after disasters; clearer and faster consumer assistance; meaningful insurance discounts and underwriting credit for verified mitigation; targeted help for homeowners who cannot afford home hardening; and stronger accountability for insurers that benefit from California's rate modernization but still refuse to write in high-risk communities.
Keith Davis: I think some of the new laws were needed and did help in certain areas, especially around consumer protections and trying to stabilize the market after the fires. But honestly, a lot of it still feels more reactive than proactive. The bigger problems are still there — carriers leaving California, rising prices and homeowners feeling stuck with fewer options every year. I think we need more focus on long-term stability, rewarding wildfire mitigation, more transparency with rate increases and making sure entire communities are not unfairly labeled as too risky based on broad wildfire models.
Merritt Farren: Some of the new legislation adopted or proposed will move the needle incrementally but falls far short of the comprehensive overhaul required. If we continue piling regulation and legislation that doesn't actually solve our crisis on top of legislation and regulation that caused our crisis, we will never escape the crisis. Californians' top priority should be electing a commissioner with the background and expertise to handle that very challenging role: experience as a lawyer leading a staff of attorneys handling complicated legal matters for a demanding organization, and C-suite private-sector executive experience. I've got that experience. No one else comes even close.
Jane Kim: The post-fire legislation took important steps on issues like claims-processing timelines and transparency requirements. But legislation alone isn't enough without enforcement, and many of California's existing consumer protection laws go unenforced because the Department lacks the political will. I will expand market-conduct examinations while investigating companies with high denial rates and imposing real consequences for bad actors. Beyond enforcement, I will push for structural reform: a public Disaster Insurance for All program that addresses the root cause of our insurance crisis.
Stacy Korsgaden: I am not seeing meaningful, measurable benefits from the new post-wildfire insurance regulations. Premiums remain high or are rising, carrier options in high-risk areas are still limited, and there is no clear evidence of improved claims service. These changes look more like a political effort to show action than reforms producing real results. Real progress would mean more carriers willing to write in fire-prone areas, reduced or at least stabilized rates and better claims handling. The Fair Claims Settlement Practices Regulations from the 1990s already address claims-handling standards, so additional rules without visible consumer benefit appear unnecessary.
Eduardo "Lalo" Vargas: I support most of the legislation passed recently and see it as a first step to addressing the insurance industries conduct after natural disasters. However, if we want to make fire survivors whole again, we must ramp up enforcement and begin holding insurers accountable for exploitative business practices. We also must guarantee full compensation for fire survivors. This is something that the insurers have continuously denied and delayed.
Patrick Wolff: There is a lot of legislation and 100 words is not enough space! Of the laws passed last year, AB 888, which authorizes grants to help residents harden their homes, could be quite effective if implemented well, and SB 429, which authorizes the estate to create a public wildfire catastrophe risk model, could be quite helpful at building public trust and understanding if implemented well. Of the proposed legislation this year, the three bills sponsored by the Department of Insurance are by far the most important, but they are still being negotiated and everything depends on how they turn out.
