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Jane Kim: Now is the time for Disaster Insurance for All

May 2, 2026

In my campaign for Insurance Commissioner, I’ve traveled up and down the state, talking to people from Tuolumne to San Diego. I hear one thing over and over: Californians are sick and tired of their toxic and dishonest relationship with insurance companies. These massive corporations are raising premiums, canceling coverage and fighting our claims every step of the way.

Without affordable and available insurance, working people are cut out of our economy – unable to buy or sell their homes, drive to work, or open a business.

Insurance companies would have you believe that they are barely making ends meet. In reality, they’re doing better than ever. Recently, Travelers Companies, one of the largest insurance companies in the country, reported they made $1.7 billion in the first 3 months of 2026. In 2025, they made $6.3 billion in profit, a remarkable 26% jump from an already successful 2024. Underwriting profit climbed 43% to $4.3 billion. Instead of providing refunds or discounts to their valuable customers, Travelers paid $2.2 billion of so-called “excess capital” to their wealthy shareholders. And then raised premiums on their policyholders.

Further, a significant share of insurance industry profits comes from denying, delaying, or underpaying legitimate claims they are contractually bound to cover. In the aftermath of devastating wildfires, policyholders—who have responsibly paid their premiums for decades—are discovering that the protection they relied on isn’t there. When insurers refuse to deliver the coverage people have paid for, this is large-scale theft.

When companies have a good year – lower catastrophe losses, strong underwriting – the surplus goes to shareholders. When companies have a bad year, they drop their most vulnerable customers while still raising rates on everyone else. Or worse, exit the market, leaving homeowners scrambling.

In short: premiums go up in good years to pad reserves, and they go up in bad years to cover losses.

That’s why I’m proposing a public Disaster Insurance for All program. There are no shareholders to fund. Our money stays in the state. We re-invest our dollars into home hardening, fire and flood prevention to lower risk for everyone. This is not a radical idea; it’s the only common sense solution to stabilize the market.

Ember-resistant vents, Class A roofing, and defensible space expansion can be the difference between a home with minor damage and a total loss. These investments are a fraction of a total loss. But the private market has no mandate to fund prevention.

A public program which guarantees coverage to all homeowners is incentivized to lower risk by investing in prevention. Risk reduction becomes profitable.

The current structure isn’t working and it’s too expensive. Private insurers have dropped over 600,000 homeowners into the pricey and undercapitalized FAIR Plan, which they run with a secret industry-dominated governing board that we have zero insight into. And when the FAIR Plan can’t cover catastrophes, insurance companies just pass the cost right back to non-FAIR Plan California policyholders. It was designed by the industry to serve the industry.

The overwhelming majority of Californians want to see major reform of the current insurance industry.

We need an Insurance Commissioner with the experience and political courage to fight for what we deserve, not to manage decline. I am refusing to accept a dime from insurance companies or corporate PACs so that I can be truly independent, and finally turn this office into a watchdog for consumers.

Because the money is there. Travelers just told us so.

Jane Kim served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She is a candidate for California insurance commissioner.

Orange County Register

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Jane Kim: Now is the time for Disaster Insurance for All

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