The new state insurance commissioner has a plan to overhaul the troubled home insurance market. Will it work?

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Set us as preferred Former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim overcame her lack of name recognition to win the race to be California’s next insurance commissioner by making a novel proposal: establishing a government-run wildfire program that would radically overhaul the state’s troubled home insurance market.Her Natural Disaster Insurance for All plan promises to make home insurance affordable and increase its availability by taking the profit motive out of the system, eliminating costs such as high executive salaries and, most importantly, having as a core mission the reduction of growing wildfire risks that have caused a series of catastrophic blazes in the last decade.Those blazes — culminating in the Jan.7, 2025, firestorms that damaged or destroyed more than 16,000 structures in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas alone — caused insurers to drop policyholders in fire-prone areas while raising rates, though statewide they remain near the nationwide average depending on the study.As a consequence, the state’s privately operated insurer of last resort, the California FAIR Plan, has seen residential policies more than double to 677,000 since 2022 even as it surcharged residential policyholders statewide to help pay for $4 billion in January 2025 losses.

Business Former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim declared victory Friday in the race to be California’s next insurance commissioner, with veteran legislator Ben Allen conceding.“We understand that this is a bold proposal, and I think that the crisis demands a bold proposal,” Kim said in an interview.“The current framework is failing, and if you talk to your everyday Californian, they don’t believe the current system is working.”The idea for a state-run wildfire plan funded by policyholders is not unique.

A similar plan was briefly outlined as an op...