Jane Kim, a former member of the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors, is running for California Insurance Commissioner with a plan to provide natural disaster insurance to all Californians.
“I’m running for one of the most important jobs in California that many voters have not heard of,” Kim said.
She is backed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and recommended by the Democratic Socialists of America. She wants the state to reinvest insurance premiums in wildfire prevention.
“The insurance industry has done nothing to innovate or to change their model despite the fact that risk has grown,” Kim said. “Their answer to climate crisis is one: they continue to invest our premiums in the fossil fuel industry which is driving the climate crisis and then they cancel coverage on the homes destroyed by it and then two: is to raise rates, cancel coverage, and of course as we all know fight our claims every step of the way.”
She wants a model based on countries such as New Zealand, France and Spain, which have government-backed natural disaster insurance programs.
Kim said that if the state takes on natural disaster insurance, private insurers will be able to offer more affordable policies covering other types of risk.
“The home insurance industry is free to write policies and still cover most types of risk like the flood in your home if a pipe bursts, the fire in your home cause the stove burst, burglaries,” Kim said. “But the state of California would take on wildfire risk.”
She explained that in New Zealand, homes are covered through a shared insurance pool regardless of their risk profile. In California, Kim said, the insurance market has become fragmented, with lower-risk homes insured by the private sector and homeowners considered high-risk turning to the FAIR Plan, which provides basic fire coverage to homeowners who cannot obtain traditional insurance.
“We would take a portion of the premiums so Californians collectively spend $18 billion on home insurance and we estimate $3 to $6 billion on just wildfire coverage and we would claw that money in the state fund,” Kim said.
She said the money would be used to fireproof entire communities and reduce wildfire risk. Kim argued that insurance companies are designed to price risk rather than reduce it.
“On an average wildfire year we would cover claims without raising any additional money or any additional subsidies,” Kim said. “Now in a year like 2025 when the fires ripped through the Palisades and Altadena this program could not have covered a catastrophic year like that but no insurance company can.”
She said her program would need to purchase reinsurance and borrow against its assets to cover losses in catastrophic years.
“[The program] would take the returns from the premiums and actually invest it in driving down risk meaning they would invest it in flood proofing, fire proofing entire communities so that they don’t go up in flames in the future,” Kim said.
When asked why similar programs in New Zealand, France and Spain do not cover wildfires, Kim said the programs are designed around the catastrophic risks each country faces.
“Countries cover the catastrophic risk that their countries are facing,” Kim said. “So New Zealand covers mudslides and floods. They actually do cover fire if it’s caused by volcanic eruption or earthquakes but they don’t have wildfires in New Zealand that’s why they don’t cover it.”