Ben Allen, a state senator who represents a district stretching from Calabasas to Rancho Palos Verdes, West Hollywood and the Pacific Palisades, is running in the June 2 primary for California insurance commissioner.
“With the wildfires that we’ve seen, the increasing climate risk that we see around our state and the increasing cost of insurance and insurers pulling out and dropping people, the job has become much more important,” Allen said in an interview with Annenberg Media. “In fact issues relating to the job are now routinely on the front page of the paper, and it’s largely because of how much harder the insurance situation has become in this state.”
The job, which typically receives minimal fanfare, is receiving heightened attention after the Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed over 16,000 structures last year. Other candidates in the race include former state senator Steven Bradford and Jane Kim, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
The insurance commissioner runs the California Department of Insurance which oversees and regulates the auto and home insurance markets.
Allen said the long term strategy would “be centered looking aggressively on ways to reduce risk” while working with the insurance industry, utilities, and fire experts “to help communities transition to more fire safe infrastructure.”
Allen said that immediately after the fire, he assisted people dealing with claim denials.
“I actually ended up writing a bill with significant insurance industry opposition to increase the percentage of payouts that the insurers are gonna be required to pay for the contents coverage in the case of total loss,” Allen said.
He said faith is undermined when insurers do not treat customers well following a disaster.
“Why would you want to get anything beyond the absolute minimal insurance if your senses that when you’re in your time of need you’re not going to be taken care of by the insurer that you’ve been paying to for so long.”
With so many people now in wildfire-prone areas, Allen envisions a department that is more responsive and user friendly, and does rate cases more quickly.
“We know there is so much value associated with making these fires much less likely in the future,” Allen said. “Value for the insurance companies, value for the utilities, value for the public. How do we utilize the potential resources and the potentially lost resources to push our communities toward greater fire resilience and greater risk reduction.”
He continued by saying that he hopes the future of insurance in California “will be abundant and available and affordable because we have both taken the steps necessary to reduce our risks in a climate unfriendly world while also holding the insurers accountable to responding in turn to that risk reduction with available and affordable products.”
Allen also explained that he thinks climate change and insurance go hand in hand and said that the insurance markets have “front row seats to the crisis associated with climate change.”
Allen said that college aged voters have the most at stake in the future compared to any other age group.
“When they look ahead they gotta be looking for somebody who is a firm defender of environmental protection, who’s committed to fighting the climate crisis, who’s committed to consumers, who’s committed to policyholders, who’s committed to regular folks who want to build a life here, who want to eventually own a home and build a business.”
The primary election is scheduled for June 2.