Meet the insurance commissioner candidates: Jane Kim

Capitol Weekly recently asked a half dozen insurance commissioner candidates to answer a set of identical questions regarding how they would approach this incredibly important and challenging job. The candidates – Sen. Ben Allen, former Sen. Steven Bradford, California Working Families Party executive director Jane Kim, Insurance agent Stacy Korsgaden, Los Angeles school teacher Lalo Vargas and financial analyst Patrick Wolff – all submitted their answers, which we will be presenting individually in alphabetical order by last name. In recent weeks we have featured answers from Sen. Ben Allen and former Sen. Steven Bradford. This week we bring you answers from California Working Families Party executive director Jane Kim.

1) What professional experience or background best prepares you to serve as California’s Insurance Commissioner, and how would that experience guide your decision-making in this role?

I’ve spent my career taking on powerful interests to make California more affordable. As a San Francisco Supervisor, I authored and passed California’s first $15 minimum wage. I advanced some of the strongest tenant protections in the country while negotiating major housing deals with deep affordability requirements. I worked with labor groups to pass a gross-receipts tax that raised $140 million to raise wages for city workers and expanded early childhood education. I secured tuition-free community college for all San Franciscans.

I will bring this energy to the Insurance Commissioner office: I will be relentless about lowering costs, ensuring we prioritize people over profits, ensuring transparency on how our premiums are spent, and leveraging every tool of the office to deliver measurable outcomes and real accountability.

2) Many Californians report difficulty finding or keeping homeowners insurance coverage. What is your plan to ensure insurance remains available statewide, particularly in higher-risk areas?

Insurers currently cherry-pick the customers they want while abandoning people in higher-risk areas. Meanwhile, they’re making record profits by using wildfires and other disasters as justification to drive up premiums for everyone while making record profits.

My plan is to guarantee affordability and availability in three ways:

1) Stop the bleeding: Insurers are dropping Californians in high-risk areas with 75 days notice in a market where finding replacement coverage can take months. As Commissioner, I’ll extend non-renewal notice periods, enforce and strengthen coverage commitments in wildfire-distressed areas, and use rate approval authority to hold carriers accountable for serving communities more broadly. I’ll also work to reform the FAIR Plan to bring it under public oversight, because as long as it remains the only option for hundreds of thousands of Californians, it needs to actually protect us in our most vulnerable moments.

2) Reduce risk to make coverage more viable: Insurers are leaving high-risk areas and abandoning Californians. We need to invest in preventative measures which actually reduce our collective risk as a community and state. I’ll scale home hardening, community firebreaks, and resiliency investments, and require that mitigation translates into lower premiums and continued eligibility. Californians want to ensure their homes and most valuable assets are safe.  A public insurance system will make resiliency and protection its top goal, not profits.

3) Guarantee coverage through Disaster Insurance for All: Our current insurance system is a failure. Californians are tied to the whims of shareholder pressure to increase, protect and grow insurance profits at all costs. Worst of all private insurers can abandon and exit the California market whenever they feel like it. Current reforms tying coverage commitments to catastrophe modeling are voluntary––carriers can decline and leave. Unlike the private market, a public, nonprofit disaster insurance system is designed to protect Californians first––guaranteed coverage, pooling and investing our dollars together to invest in resiliency and building a reserve pool if any of our neighbors are in the unfortunate predicament of losing everything they love (the original purpose of insurance!).

3) How would you propose to bolster California’s FAIR Plan?

The FAIR Plan was designed to address redlining by insurers and stabilize the real estate market in largely low-income and black and brown neighborhoods in the 1960s. The FAIR plan was not designed to be a wildfire risk pool that absorbs hundreds of thousands of people kicked off of their insurance plans. In the short term, we must move the FAIR Plan under public oversight rather than private control, improve policy offerings, and invest some of the revenue in risk reduction. In the medium term we need an insurer of first resort, not an insurer of last resort.

A single payer, Disaster Insurance for All program will allow us to spread risk, stabilize premiums, and guarantee that every Californian has affordable coverage when disaster strikes. Instead of locking families into an expensive, for-profit “safety net” plan or leaving them uninsured altogether, we can build a public system designed around protection so people can stay in their homes and communities can recover faster. Right now, we are being held hostage by an increasingly unstable private insurance market, and we need solutions that get at the root of this crisis rather than temporary fixes.

4) Rates have risen sharply. What specific actions would you take as Insurance Commissioner to slow or reduce rate increases while ensuring insurers remain financially stable?

Even if we have insurance in California, our premiums continue to rise, often without explanation. We think twice before filing a claim, nervous that we will be penalized for using the very thing we have been paying into for years. As Insurance Commissioner, I would enact consumer protections that disincentive insurers from penalizing people simply for using the coverage they pay for. That means pursuing regulations and legislation to prohibit premium hikes, cancellations, or non-renewals just because someone files a legitimate claim or experiences a no-fault loss. Insurers should be in the business of insurance; if they’re not, then we need to hold them accountable.

We also need to change the incentives around handling claims. Denying, delaying and underpaying claims creates distrust and frustration with the system and instability in the market when people don’t know if and when they can rebuild. As Insurance Commissioner, I would strictly enforce laws that require insurers to pay interest on delayed claims in order to discourage stalling, and that require insurance companies to issue immediate payouts after total losses to help families recover quickly instead of forcing them to document every fork or pair of shoes they lost before getting basic support. Faster, fairer claims processes reduce overall system costs, and they significantly improve the consumer experience for people enduring one of the worst moments of their lives.

Finally, transparency and accountability are essential to keeping rates reasonable. I would launch stronger oversight of companies with high denial or complaint rates, investigate when fraud or abuse is suspected, and build a public insurer performance dashboard so Californians can see how companies treat their customers.

5) How will you maintain independence from insurance companies, political parties, and special interests while serving as Insurance Commissioner?

I’m drawing a bright line: I will not take a single dollar from insurance companies or executives, nor will I take money from corporate PACs or fossil fuel companies. Californians deserve a Commissioner who answers to the public, not the industry.

My entire career, I have organized and fought on behalf of working families and my endorsements reflect this: I’m trusted by teachers, janitors, service, hospitality, healthcare and social workers.

6) Wildfire and natural disaster risk increasingly shape the market. What role should the Insurance Commissioner play before disasters occur, and how should costs be shared?

I’m proposing a public, nonprofit disaster insurance system that spreads risk broadly, eliminates shareholder profits, and keeps investment returns in California to strengthen reserves and stabilize premiums over time.

A public model would also let us address climate risk proactively. The state could tie premiums directly to mitigation efforts, reward homeowners and communities that reduce wildfire risk, and invest in resilience infrastructure like fuel management, early warning systems, and home hardening. It could also ensure that the biggest corporate polluters contribute to the costs they created, rather than leaving taxpayers and homeowners to shoulder the cost of climate disaster alone.

And when disasters occur, Californians will get immediate support. California would promptly pay claims after total losses so families can replace essentials without months of paperwork battles. Insurance should provide security before disasters through prevention and resilience, and real relief afterward.

Bonus Questions (Optional)

A) Where do you stand on California’s intervenor process?

The intervenor process exists so that Californians have an independent voice in rate-setting. Consumer advocates have documented that they have saved Californians billions of dollars each year through their independent advocacy permitted through the intervenor process. While it’s great that the intervenor process is saving Californians money, the Department needs to be a more aggressive advocate for consumers in its own right.

As Commissioner, I’ll invest in the Department’s rate review capacity so that every filing gets rigorous scrutiny whether or not an outside intervenor is at the table. I’ll ensure rate reviews are completed within a reasonable timeframe. We can and should make the process more accessible to community organizations and individuals in the parts of the state hit hardest by the insurance crisis.

B) How should voters measure success — and what outcomes should Californians expect by the end of your first term?

More affordable and available insurance.

• Improved insurance availability with fewer nonrenewals and cancellations.
• Increased coverage options across regions
• Fewer unjustified rate hikes, more transparency in filings, and stronger enforcement against excessive profits
• Faster, fairer claims process. Tougher penalties for bad actors, and public report card of insurer performance.
• The introduction of Disaster Insurance for All and Medicare for Kids so that Californians have safety and security when it comes to natural disasters and healthcare for their children.