Ben AllenBen Allen

On January 7, 2025, the Palisades Fire erupted just miles from my home, tearing through a community I’ve represented in the State Senate for over a decade. Helping hundreds of constituents who lost everything successfully navigate insurance claims gave me a front-row seat to our broken insurance system. Standing amid smoke, ashes, and uncertainty, I saw what failure looks like. California must do better. That’s why I’m running for Insurance Commissioner: to protect consumers, safeguard the environment, and make government accountable to the people it serves. California needs leaders with the determination and track record to deliver results. I have a long track record of success working for the public interest: In the State Senate, I’ve taken on insurance industry lobbyists, passed some of the nation’s strongest consumer protection laws, and led eforts to invest $10 billion in wildfre prevention, water infrastructure improvements, and climate resilience. As Insurance Commissioner, my #1 priority will be putting consumers first. That means: Holding polluters accountable: I’ll make corporate polluters financially responsible for climate damages that drive up insurance costs. Fair treatment after disasters: I’ll protect consumers and require insurers to facilitate expedited, resilient rebuilding. Preventing future disasters: I’ll accelerate vegetation and forest management programs that reduce fire risk and lower your insurance costs. Free from industry infuence: I’m refusing insurance industry campaign contributions. I’m honored to have support from leaders like U.S. Senator Adam Schif, California Environmental Voters, California Professional Firefghters, and California Federation of Teachers. I hope to earn your support, too. benallenca.com

Allen aims to increase transparency from insurance companies and the Department of Insurance by appointing a consumer advocate. He advocates for disclosing insurers' fossil fuel investments and holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for climate risks. He proposes banning commissioners from working in the insurance industry immediately after leaving office.

Key endorsements: California Environmental Voters, California Professional Firefighters, Sierra Club.

Ben Allen is currently my state senator, I’ve met him a few times. I really respect him and trust him.

Ben Allen.

Let me put some more nuance here since it's an awkward office to run for:

Insurance Commissioner is primarily responsible for regulating how insurance companies provide rates, who they cover, and what they do with their float.

For you and me, who probably aren't homeowners, and probably don't have the capacity to buy property insurance anytime soon, the first two pieces aren't very important. Sure, they're good to watch for, but they don't affect us for the most part.

None of the candidates running for this office have explicitly mentioned or highlighted the third part.

The third part of the office is the most important for regulating the market as a whole. What insurance companies do with our premiums, by investing it across several low-to-high risk funds, can have significant implications for the market's health. This impact is multiplied in the private credit market.

Insurance Commissioners can require that insurance investment funds publicly label their investments and the associated risk behind them, placing a key check on private investors playing with the state's insurance market and threatening to destabilize the lives of claimants should a massive disaster happen again like the Palisades fire.

By requiring public disclosures of what insurance investors do with the money and certifying public credit risk assessments, the insurance commissioner would be utilizing the full power of their office to manipulate the market for good and protect California's insurance market from the impending credit crisis facing the nation as a whole. Once one of the candidates marks that as a priority, I'll be inclined to switch support to them or further support them.

Notably however, Ben safely advocates for insurance to not be a huge behemoth taking advantage of climate prone areas while also keeping these companies stable enough to provide coverage at reasonable rates.

Jane’s platform highlights a divestment from private investments by insurance companies, eliminating their float and making the rich even more angry and fueling them for republican opposition. A public model doesn’t work for California not only because we don’t have public health insurance yet, which should be first, but it also threatens to actually trickle down from mom and pop landlords bearing the brunt of a rise in cost from the public option, making it more unaffordable for renters to be in California. For those reasons, I’d go with the safer option in Ben Allen.

Dual endorsement

VIG listing; Occupation: California State Senator

Folks who pay attention to this wonky position and care about climate strongly support Ben Allen. Patrick Wolff would be a close second for me. This role needs a practical thinker who understands the complexities of the insurance market and the impacts that climate change (e.g., wildfires and more) are already having on our home state.

Dual endorsement

Ben Allen offers the most realistic fix for California's insurance crisis — the core problem is that people can't get policies at all, and his plan targets that directly: speeding rate-hike review from a year-plus down to months to rebuild insurer confidence and get carriers writing in California again, using powers the commissioner actually holds.

He attacks the root cause, not just the price — as author of Prop 4, the voter-approved $10B climate-resiliency bond, he's focused on reducing the underlying wildfire risk driving insurers out, with home-hardening grants for high-risk areas and more claims handlers during emergencies. The Mercury News endorsed him as the one candidate who grasps the over-regulate/under-regulate tightrope.

His approach is more incremental than bold — and that's the point. Critics, including Jane Kim's supporters, argue a state-run insurance fund or public option would do more. That's a fair preference, and Kim essentially tied Allen for grassroots support. But those structural fixes largely require new legislation and funding the commissioner can't deliver alone; Allen's bet is on what the office can actually execute now. If you want achievable over ambitious, he's the choice.

Insurance is a slow-burning disaster in California. The core of the problem is 1) climate change increasing the rate of significant property damage 2) homeowners in fire-prone areas lobbying for rules that prevent insurance companies from accurately pricing climate risk 3) insurance companies responding to this rationally by refusing to issue new policies. As the Palisades wildfires showed, disasters cause large, concentrated losses, with large numbers of people on the state’s special high-risk insurance plan because they could not buy conventional insurance. The plan is funded by a tax on all insurance companies operating in the state, and as such is effectively a subsidy for people living in risky areas – what my favorite socialist writer calls “ bad climate socialism.” This is also what would happen if the state took over the entire home insurance market (as one candidate is proposing) without managing retreat from climate risks. A better insurance market in California probably requires people to leave risky places to live and for insurance prices there to reflect the actual likelihood of disaster. Ben Allen has the most credible plan for encouraging this, including a willingness to let insurers accurately price risk, which allows them to come back to the state. This is unpopular in disaster-prone areas but ought to be popular for the rest of us. I want to have renters’ insurance again.