Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: Commonwealth Club of California Podcast
Episode: California Insurance Commissioner Candidate Forum
Description: The California Department of Insurance regulates the insurance industry, with consumer protection as its core tenet. The insurance commissioner heads the Department of Insurance, managing more than 1,400 employees and overseeing 1,600 insurance companies.
Ricardo Lara, the current commissioner, has faced increasingly challenging circumstances. Devastating wildfires in 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2025 have burned tens of thousands of homes; 7 of California’s 12 top insurers have pulled back from the California market since Lara took office in 2019. Meanwhile, the California FAIR Plan—the state-run public home insurance program designed to be the “insurer of last resort”—has more than doubled its policyholders between 2019 and 2023, due to the...