The insurance commissioner may sound like an obscure regulatory title, but the job carries enormous weight. The commissioner runs the California Department of Insurance, which regulates homeowners, auto, life, health and workers’ compensation coverage, among other lines. It’s the commissioner’s job to make sure policies remain available, premiums stay within reason, and insurance companies actually follow through on what they promise policyholders.

Those responsibilities hit especially close to home for Californians as wildfire risk and other climate-driven disasters intensify. Seven of the state’s 10 most destructive wildfires have struck within the last decade. At the same time, residents are grappling with rising costs across the board, insurance premiums included — and it’s the Department of Insurance that signs off on those rate hikes.

Most states appoint their insurance commissioner, but California is one of 11 where voters elect the position directly. The current commissioner, Democrat and former state legislator Ricardo Lara, has held the office for eight years. State Sen. Ben Allen and former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim, both Democrats, are now vying to replace him when his term ends in January.

Whoever wins will have to balance competing interests — consumers, insurance companies, consumer advocacy groups, wildfire survivors and more.

“The job isn’t to be a friend or an enemy to anyone, except to be a friend to the California consumer,” said Lucy Wang, a former special counsel at the Department of Insurance during Lara’s tenure. Wang left the department late last year and now works as a senior attorney at a San Francisco law firm, where she represents insurers on regulatory matters and litigation.

CalMatters spoke with experts including Wang, consumer advocacy groups and Lara’s predecessor about what the commissioner can — and can’t — actually do.

Lara declined to be interviewed for this story. Department of Insurance spokesperson Michael Soller offered this statement instead: “Guided by an unprecedented level of communication with the public across the state, [Lara] used executive power to overcome entrenched opposition from every sector and modernize insurance regulation to confront the climate crisis.”

**Setting Policy and Rules**

The commissioner sets policy and rolls out new regulations, many of which reach directly into consumers’ wallets — either through the rulemaking process or by working alongside state lawmakers to craft legislation.

Several years ago, a string of massive, deadly wildfires drove a wave of costly claims, prompting some insurers to stop writing or renewing policies in California altogether. Companies argued the rates they were allowed to charge didn’t reflect actual risk, and that the Department of Insurance was too slow approving rate increases. State lawmakers tried to pass legislation addressing the problem but failed. Gov. Gavin Newsom then issued an executive order directing Lara to fix it. Last year, Lara put new regulations in place that borrowed from those failed bills — including provisions the insurance industry had been pushing for a long time.

The new rules let insurers factor catastrophe modeling — which accounts for future risk, not just historical data — and reinsurance costs into their rate-setting. In practice, that means most Californians will see their premiums climb, if they haven’t already. The department is also trying to speed up its review of insurers’ rate-increase requests.

Lara’s department and the insurance industry both say the commissioner’s so-called sustainable insurance strategy is beginning to show results. Some companies have resumed writing policies in the state, though the department says it doesn’t yet know how many of those are genuinely new customers, according to Soller.

The FAIR Plan — a last-resort program that pools insurers required to sell fire coverage to homeowners who can’t get it anywhere else — has swelled in recent years as insurers pulled back from the market. That growth has slowed recently, which the department points to as another sign its new rules are working. As of June, the FAIR Plan still had nearly 700,000 active policies, up 8% from September 2025 and 157% from September 2022.

Another new rule that recently took effect concerns the role of “intervenors” in insurance rate reviews. Under Proposition 103, the ballot measure that governs California insurance law, any resident can intervene — hence the term — to challenge an insurer’s request for a rate hike, and get compensated for doing so. The consumer group Consumer Watchdog, founded by the author of Prop 103, has long been the state’s leading intervenor. The group says it saved Californians $6.4 billion between 2002 and 2024.

“The intervention process is an additional check to keep insurance prices from spiraling upward,” said Will Pletcher, an attorney with Consumer Watchdog. He added that insurance companies “will always be able to outspend consumers,” and that the intervention process gives the public a way to scrutinize proposed rates.

Average annual homeowners insurance premiums in California — a state with some of the priciest real estate in the country — rank in the middle nationally but have jumped 23% since 2023, according to an analysis by the comparison site Bankrate.com.

Lara’s new rule requires intervenors to make a substantial, distinct contribution to the department’s work, and that contribution must actually lead to a changed decision or other department action. Thirty-two consumer, labor and public advocacy organizations oppose the change. They argue it will make it harder for intervenors to get paid — Consumer Watchdog’s compensation totaled $14.2 million between 2002 and 2024 — and could discourage challenges to insurer rate requests, potentially leading to higher premiums for Californians.

Lara and the group have a long history of friction; Consumer Watchdog has raised questions about his ties to the insurance industry and pushed him toward greater transparency.

“The current commissioner is trying to punish [founder] Harvey [Rosenfield] and Watchdog, and that’s how we ended up with these absurd rules,” said Robert Herrell, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, another advocacy group that occasionally intervenes in rate cases.

Herrell, who previously worked at the Department of Insurance, said relying solely on the department’s internal expertise isn’t ideal. “An outside perspective can bring fresh thinking,” he said.

Lara has also proposed a rule the insurance industry doesn’t love: requiring companies to submit their solvency risk management plans to the department.

Wang, the former department attorney, helped draft it. She said the goal is giving the department as much information as possible to keep the insurance market stable.

Insurers are already required to share financial information with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Industry representatives argued in public comments in July that the new rule would be redundant and burdensome, requiring new expertise and expense.

Some consumer and civil rights groups, including Public Citizen, support Lara’s proposed rule. In its public comments, a Public Citizen representative urged the department to go further — for instance, by setting specific requirements for how insurers report climate-related risks.

In another example of how the commissioner’s authority directly affects consumer costs, a California appeals court ruled in July to uphold Lara’s right to continue allowing insurers to use a driver’s marital status as an optional factor in setting auto insurance rates. That practice dates back to 1996, under regulations added by former Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush. Consumer groups have found that single drivers tend to pay more for auto insurance as a result. The case is expected to be appealed and could eventually land before the California Supreme Court.

**Holding Insurers Accountable**

The commissioner has the power to scrutinize how insurance companies behave and demand changes, or to work with the Legislature to write new laws forcing their hand.

After the 1991 Oakland Hills tunnel fire, many homeowners discovered their coverage fell short. Then-Commissioner John Garamendi pressured insurers into providing an additional $300 million in coverage. Now a member of Congress, Garamendi was seen as a fierce consumer advocate who regularly butted heads with the insurance industry — a strategy that worked in some cases and fell flat in others.

Survivors of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, many of whom are still trying to rebuild their lives, called for Lara’s resignation late last year. Frustrated by delays in claims processing, they accused the Department of Insurance of failing to deliver the help they needed in the aftermath.

“Fire survivors are absolutely right that they’re being treated unfairly,” said Amy Bach, executive director of the consumer advocacy group United Policyholders. But she added that the department has limited power over many insurance industry practices, such as assigning multiple adjusters to survivors, and it cannot settle disputes between policyholders and their insurers.

“The reality is [the department] can’t step into the shoes of a private attorney,” Bach said.

Even so, Lara’s predecessor, Dave Jones, said the commissioner should take more aggressive enforcement action against insurers.

“I think it’s important to have a commissioner who’s willing to exercise the authority the law gives them, and who is independent — not just from the influence of the insurance industry, but from the governor and the Legislature as well,” Jones said.

Lara’s department investigated how State Farm handled claims from last year’s Los Angeles County wildfires. In May, the department found that State Farm had broken the law — among other things, by delaying payments and underpaying claims — and recommended multimillion-dollar fines along with a possible one-year suspension. Yet the department still hasn’t scheduled a hearing on the matter, and late last month, fire survivors filed a lawsuit against Lara and the department, asking for a judge to be assigned to the case and seeking to participate as intervenors.

The Department of Insurance also took legal action against the FAIR Plan, accusing it of denying smoke-damage claims following the Eaton and Palisades fires. Smoke damage can be harder to detect, and there are no established assessment standards — though two bills recently passed by the Legislature aim to set standards that would be the first of their kind nationally.

The department reported that survivors of last year’s fires filed roughly 13,000 smoke-damage claims. Lara ordered the creation of a task force to study those claims, and the group released its recommendations earlier this year. Some of those recommendations made their way into the bills now sitting on the governor’s desk, including a requirement for testing to detect toxic materials, which would affect what insurance is required to cover. Lara backed Assembly Bill 1795; the other measure is AB 1642.

Wildfires represent the biggest challenge facing the commissioner right now, but the job touches on many other insurance issues as well. Earlier in his tenure, Lara dealt heavily with health insurance, as Covered California, the state’s health insurance marketplace created under the Affordable Care Act, was still getting off the ground.

The commissioner can review health insurance policies and proposed rate changes but cannot block rate increases outright — despite Jones’ earlier push to expand the office’s authority to do exactly that.

Still, Jones worked to exclude certain insurers from the small-business health insurance marketplace, arguing they showed patterns of excessive rate hikes. He and other consumer groups also succeeded in capping what Covered California beneficiaries had to pay out of pocket for specialty drugs, a move that put him at odds with then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration.

“That made a lot of people angry with me, but it was the right thing to do,” Jones said. “We need a commissioner willing to do that.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post What California’s Insurance Commissioner Does — and How It Affects Your Wallet appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The insurance commissioner’s job might sound like dry bureaucratic business, but it carries significant weight. The office oversees the California Department of Insurance, which regulates everything from homeowners and auto coverage to health, life and workers’ compensation policies. Part of the job is ensuring insurance stays available and affordable, while making sure companies actually follow through on what they promise policyholders.

That mission matters more than ever as wildfire risk climbs across California. Seven of the ten most destructive fires in state history have struck in just the last ten years. Add in the broader rise in the cost of living, and insurance premiums — which the department has final say over — have become a pressing concern for families statewide.

Unlike most states, where the position is appointed, California is among just 11 states that let voters pick their insurance commissioner directly. Current Commissioner Ricardo Lara, a Democrat and former state lawmaker, has held the post for eight years. His term ends in January, and two Democrats — state Sen. Ben Allen and former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim — are now competing to succeed him.

Whoever wins will have to juggle competing interests: everyday consumers, insurance companies, advocacy groups and wildfire survivors all pulling in different directions.

“Your role is not to be friend or foe, except (be a friend) to the California consumer,” said Lucy Wang, who served as special counsel for the department under Lara before leaving last year to join a San Francisco law firm representing insurers.

CalMatters spoke with Wang, consumer advocates and a former commissioner to better understand what the office can — and can’t — do. Lara declined an interview request. A department spokesperson, Michael Soller, said in a statement that Lara “wielded executive power to overcome entrenched opposition from all sides and modernize insurance regulation to meet the climate crisis,” following what the department described as extensive public outreach.

Shaping policy and rules

The commissioner has real power to shape rules that directly hit consumers’ wallets, either through regulation or by partnering with legislators on new laws.

A few years back, several major insurers pulled out of California or stopped renewing policies after a string of catastrophic wildfires drove up claims costs. Insurers argued that the rates they were allowed to charge didn’t reflect their actual risk, and that state regulators were too slow approving rate hikes. Lawmakers tried and failed to fix the problem through legislation, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom to order Lara to find a solution. Last year, Lara rolled out new rules that borrowed heavily from those stalled bills — including provisions the insurance industry had pushed for years.

Under the new framework, insurers can factor in forward-looking catastrophe models — not just historical loss data — along with reinsurance costs when calculating premiums. Translation for homeowners: rates are likely to keep climbing, if they haven’t already. The department is also working to process rate-increase requests faster.

Lara’s office and the insurance industry both say the strategy, dubbed the “sustainable insurance strategy,” is showing early signs of success. Some insurers have started writing new policies again in California, though the department can’t yet say how many are actually new business, according to Soller.

The state’s FAIR Plan — the insurer of last resort for property owners who can’t find coverage elsewhere — ballooned in recent years as private insurers retreated. Its growth has slowed lately, something the department points to as evidence the new rules are having an effect. As of June, the FAIR Plan carried nearly 700,000 active policies, up 8% since last September but a staggering 157% higher than September 2022.

Another rule change affects so-called “intervenors” — members of the public who can formally challenge an insurer’s request for a rate hike under Proposition 103, the voter-approved law governing insurance regulation. Intervenors can be compensated for their efforts, and the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, founded by the author of Prop. 103, has long dominated that role. The group says it has saved Californians $6.4 billion between 2002 and 2024.

“(The intervenor process is) an extra check on insurance prices going higher and higher,” said Will Pletcher, an attorney with Consumer Watchdog. He noted that insurance companies will always have deeper pockets than consumers, making outside scrutiny of proposed rates essential.

Homeowners in California — where home values are the nation’s highest — pay premiums that rank in the middle nationally, but those costs have jumped 23% since 2023, according to a Bankrate.com analysis.

Lara’s new regulation requires intervenors to demonstrate their input is “substantial” and separate from the department’s own analysis, and that it actually influences the outcome. Thirty-two consumer, labor and advocacy groups oppose the change, warning it will make it harder for intervenors — who earned $14.2 million collectively from 2002 to 2024 — to get paid, potentially discouraging future challenges to rate hikes and leaving consumers with higher bills.

Tension between Lara and Consumer Watchdog isn’t new. The group has repeatedly questioned his relationships with the insurance industry and pushed for greater transparency from his office.

“The current commissioner is trying to punish (founder) Harvey (Rosenfield) and Watchdog, so you have these messed-up rules,” said Robert Herrell, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, another group that occasionally intervenes in rate cases.

Herrell, a former department employee himself, argued that outside scrutiny brings value the department’s own staff can’t always provide. “You don’t want to just rely on the expertise of the department,” he said. “Outside, fresh eyes could see new things.”

Lara has also floated a rule the insurance industry doesn’t love — requiring companies to submit plans detailing how they’ll manage solvency risk. Wang, who helped draft the proposal, said it’s about giving regulators the fullest possible picture to keep the market stable.

Insurers already report financial data to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, and industry representatives argued in public comments this summer that the new requirement would be redundant and costly, requiring new staff and expertise. Some advocacy groups, including Public Citizen, back the proposal and want the department to go even further by mandating specific disclosures about climate-related risk.

The commissioner’s authority extends to other corners of the market, too. In July, a California appeals court upheld Lara’s right to let insurers factor marital status into auto insurance pricing — a practice allowed since 1996 under rules established by former Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush. Consumer groups have found that unmarried drivers often pay more as a result. The case is likely headed for further appeal, possibly to the California Supreme Court.

Holding insurers accountable

Beyond setting policy, the commissioner has authority to investigate insurers and push for changes in their conduct, sometimes working alongside lawmakers to force compliance.

Following the devastating 1991 Oakland Hills fire, many homeowners learned they didn’t have nearly enough coverage. Then-Commissioner John Garamendi, now a member of Congress, pressured insurers into providing an extra $300 million in coverage. Garamendi earned a reputation as an aggressive consumer advocate willing to clash with the industry — a strategy that produced mixed results over time.

More recently, survivors of the devastating January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires — many still struggling to rebuild — called on Lara to resign late last year, frustrated by what they described as slow claims processing and inadequate support from his department.

“Fire survivors are 100% right that the way they’re treated is wrong,” said Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, a consumer advocacy group. But she acknowledged the department’s hands are somewhat tied when it comes to certain insurer practices, such as assigning survivors multiple adjusters, and it has no power to resolve individual disputes between policyholders and their insurers.

“The reality is that (the department) cannot stand in the shoes of a private attorney,” Bach said.

Even so, former Commissioner Dave Jones argued the office should be more aggressive about pursuing enforcement actions.

“I think it’s important to have a commissioner that is willing to exercise the authority that he or she is granted within the statutes, and is independent not just from the influence of the insurance industry, but also from the governor and the Legislature,” Jones said.

Lara’s department did launch an investigation into how State Farm handled claims from last year’s Los Angeles County wildfires. In May, the department found that State Farm had violated state law — including delaying and underpaying claims — and recommended millions of dollars in penalties along with a possible one-year suspension. However, no hearing has yet been scheduled, and fire survivors filed a lawsuit last month against Lara and the department demanding a judge be appointed to oversee the matter and seeking to participate as intervenors.

The department also took legal action against the FAIR Plan, accusing it of wrongly denying smoke-damage claims stemming from the Eaton and Palisades fires. Smoke damage can be difficult to detect and there are currently no standardized testing protocols, though two bills recently passed by the Legislature would create first-in-the-nation standards for evaluating such claims.

According to the department, survivors of last year’s fires filed roughly 13,000 smoke-damage claims. Lara convened a task force to study the issue, and its recommendations — including testing for toxic contaminants that would affect what insurance must cover — have been folded into the pending legislation now awaiting the governor’s signature. Lara has backed Assembly Bill 1795, while the companion measure is AB 1642.

Wildfires may dominate the current conversation, but the commissioner’s portfolio touches many other areas of insurance as well. During Jones’ time in office, health insurance was a central focus, coinciding with the launch of Covered California under the Affordable Care Act.

While the commissioner reviews health insurance rate changes, the office cannot actually block rate hikes — despite Jones’ unsuccessful push to expand that authority.

Still, Jones managed to bar certain insurers from California’s small-business health insurance marketplace, citing patterns of excessive rate increases. He also joined other consumer advocates in successfully pushing for caps on what Covered California enrollees pay for specialty medications, a move that put him at odds with then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration.

“That made people very unhappy with me, but it was the right thing to do,” Jones said. “We need a commissioner who’s willing to do that.”

Original source: CalMatters

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Could grants to low- and middle-income residents help? That’s an idea California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara wants to bring to the Legislature next year, he said in conversation today with CalMatters’ economy reporter Levi Sumagaysay.

Lara discussed his multi-pronged approach to the insurance crisis — with companies decreasing coverage, raising premiums for residential and commercial customers, or leaving the state altogether. Part of the plan includes speeding up the state’s reviews of insurance companies’ proposed rate hikes — which are supposed to take 60 days, but often take as long as 18 months, by which time rates might not reflect the risk anymore. 

“This was completely ignorant on my part as a new insurance commissioner. I’m like, ‘Okay, we’re reviewing these rates. We’re done, right?’ They’re like, ‘Oh no, there is a whole backlog,’” he said during the hour-long CalMatters event in Sacramento, adding that companies often submit another rate review immediately after one is done because of the long wait times. 

Another significant change Lara is pushing to make insurance more available: For California to come out of the “dark ages” to join other states in allowing insurance companies to do “catastrophe modeling.” That would allow them to take projected losses into account – not just historical information — using data such as frequency, severity, damage and loss from wildfires and other natural disasters. Insurers can start using the modeling to set rates next year.

While companies are allowed to keep the modeling private, Lara promised there will be safeguards in place to ensure data and transparency. 

“We’re doing this from scratch,” he said. 

Lara also wants to tackle problems with the FAIR Plan — a “last resort” insurance plan required by state law that offers minimum coverage for wildfires. His plan is to raise the amount of coverage. Run by a pool of insurers, the FAIR Plan has grown to 400,000 policies. 

While he worries about “Armageddon” scale disasters, Lara said the recent flurry of wildfires in Southern California don’t undermine his proposals, noting that he issued emergency declarations to protect 750,000 policyholders from losing coverage. 

“I’m so confident in my plan,” he said. “I know it’s going to work.” 

But consumer groups and Lara’s predecessors as insurance commissioner have expressed concerns that his plan favors insurers.

What’s not in Lara’s proposals? Requiring insurers to address climate change in the regulations. 

“My immediate goal is to stabilize this market now, to get insurers to come back, to grow, and then we’re going to be having conversations on separate issues, separate requirements that we can look at,” he said. 

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Insurance industry representative Rex Frazier argues that state leaders have the right idea: Burdensome regulations are making a difficult situation worse. But consumer advocate Jamie Court contends that the state needs to take a harder line by requiring coverage of homeowners who meet fire protection standards.

As the leader of an association of homeowners’ insurers, I frequently hear from anxious Californians who are losing their coverage and wondering whether the situation will get better. My answer is that I am not one of those who believes California is facing an uninsurable future. The problems we face are difficult but solvable.

The insurance challenges the state is facing today have roots in the past. While the giant wildfires of 2017 and 2018 had a huge impact, requiring insurers to pay claims equivalent to more than 20 years of profits, the state’s insurance problems predate the fires. California’s failure to update the old rules governing insurance rates have long prevented insurers from preparing for a hotter, drier future.

California’s laws are a national outlier. The rules for projecting wildfire losses, a crucial aspect of calculating insurance rates, are a case in point. California is the only state in the country that requires property insurers to project future wildfire losses based on average wildfire losses over the last 20 years, regardless of where they plan to do business. Every other state allows insurers to base their rates on where they intend to sell insurance, taking into account the degree of fire risk to the properties they plan to insure.

California is also a national outlier on rate approval in that it’s a “prior approval” state. That means an insurer must receive approval from the California Department of Insurance before it may increase or decrease rates.

While California law promises a 60-day approval period, it often takes six months or more to get permission to change rates. At times of high inflation, slow approvals require insurers to leave the highest-risk areas or face financial ruin.

A less visible but nevertheless critical issue is the financial well-being of the FAIR Plan, a pool of insurers providing last-resort coverage. The FAIR plan is growing well beyond its ability to pay claims for large fires. And if it runs out of money, it will charge insurers, as members of the pool, a fee in addition to claims from their own customers for the same fire. If that fee gets large enough, it could devastate insurers. We must address this.

Fortunately, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has recognized the need to fix these problems. His Sustainable Insurance Strategy would update California’s rate regulations and approval process while requiring insurers to make commitments to cover high-risk areas. The proposal is far from perfect, but we look forward to working with all the interested parties to increase insurance availability and restore the health of the market.

While state regulations and processes can be changed, we remain vulnerable to forces that are beyond our control. Inflation makes repairing and rebuilding homes much more expensive, driving up rates. Longer dry seasons increase the chances of devastating fires, having the same effect in the short term. We need a system that acknowledges these realities.

But raising rates is not a long-term solution. Reducing them over time will require consensus on how to handle combustible fuels near valuable property.

That will take a lot of time and effort. California homeowners’ insurers are ready to do our part to secure an insurable future for the state.

Rex Frazier is the president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California.

Home insurance companies have put Californians in a bind by refusing to sell new policies or renew many customers, leaving them with few coverage options. That has driven more homeowners into the high-cost, low-benefit FAIR Plan, a pool of insurers required to provide last-resort coverage.

Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced legislation to allow insurance companies to hike rates more quickly in an effort to woo them back to the state. While that will certainly leave Californians paying higher rates, it’s not likely to get more people covered.

Insurance companies are refusing to write new policies despite substantial recent rate hikes — an average of 20% for State Farm and 37% for Farmers, for example. What has them spooked is greater exposure through the FAIR Plan, which increasingly covers expensive homes in wildfire-prone areas. Insurers are on the hook for FAIR Plan claims, and their exposure increases with market participation, so they limit their participation.

Only freeing people from the FAIR Plan will solve this. The most practical way to do that is to require insurers to cover people who harden their homes against fire. We have mandatory health and auto insurance, so why shouldn’t we have it for homes that meet standards?

Hardening is expensive enough that most homeowners are unlikely to do it without guaranteed coverage. Mandating insurance is therefore the best way to mitigate wildfire risks.

Mitigation efforts are already working, with major claim events dwindling in recent years. Moreover, insurers recovered billions from the utilities responsible for major fire losses in 2017 and 2018.

The current crisis was precipitated not so much by wildfires as by investment losses and rising construction costs. Insurers responded by tightening underwriting and raising rates.

Insurance companies got their hikes, but they refuse to write new business here until they get more. Unfortunately, Newsom and Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara are ready to give them what they want.

Last week, Lara proposed regulations attempting to address the crisis. Echoing a legislative proposal that failed last year, they would allow companies to raise rates based on black-box climate models. Florida tried a similar approach, and its rates are now about double California’s. Florida’s insurer of last resort covers 20% of its homeowners, roughly five times the share in California.

The proposed regulations purport to require insurers to increase sales to homeowners in “distressed areas” by 5%. However, they would not require them to charge prices consumers can afford. The requirement to cover these areas could also be waived if an insurer shows it’s “taking reasonable steps to fulfill its insurer commitment.” And the plan gives companies two years to comply but lets them start charging all policyholders higher rates immediately.

Newsom cheered the proposal, essentially arguing that California’s insurance rates are too damn low. He didn’t mention that California insurers’ profits have generally outpaced the national average over the last 20 years.

Newsom’s latest legislative proposal would limit public participation in rate-setting by cutting out so-called intervenors such as Consumer Watchdog, which can challenge unnecessary increases and has saved consumers more than $6 billion over 22 years.

Throwing more money at insurers won’t end the crisis; requiring them to cover responsible homeowners will.

Jamie Court is the president of the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog.

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