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Patrick Wolff: Taking on the insurance crisis with experience, not politics

May 2, 2026

Insurance is essential. You cannot buy a home, run a business, or protect your family without it. It is unacceptable that California’s insurance markets have deteriorated so badly that millions of Californians find insurance either unaffordable or unavailable.

The problem is our political system keeps putting people in charge of insurance regulation who have no insurance experience. The solution is to elect an Insurance Commissioner who actually understands how insurance markets work.

I am Patrick Wolff, a lifelong Democrat with 25 years of business and financial experience in insurance. Early in my career, I built an auto and home insurance brokerage business for a major bank. For the past two decades, I have worked as an investor and financial analyst, studying financial and insurance markets. This is my first run for elected office. I will not run for any other office if elected, I am taking no money from insurance companies, and I will never accept any corporate gifts. My sole focus is fixing California’s insurance system for Californians.

I am the only candidate with a comprehensive plan to address all major lines of insurance: Property and Casualty, Healthcare, and Life. The next Insurance Commissioner must be prepared across all lines of insurance, but of course fixing the crisis in Property and Casualty is most critical. My plan to fix the crisis starts with three priorities: holding insurance companies accountable, increasing choice and competition, and improving transparency.

First, accountability. Right now, Californians do not know whether their insurance company will treat them fairly. The California Department of Insurance (CDI) collects detailed data on how insurers handle claims through Market Conduct Annual Statements, but insurance companies have lobbied to stop company-specific data from being released. I will change that. I will release a report card for every insurance company, grading them on reliability and claims performance. When consumers know which companies pay claims fairly and which do not, they are empowered to make informed choices.

Second, increasing choice and competition. The CDI has created a system that makes it extremely difficult for insurers to operate. Today, companies on average wait over 300 days to get a rate or product approved, compared to the 60-day average in most other states. I will fix this by cutting red tape to streamline the approval process, following the timelines already written into law, and reserving strict scrutiny for the cases that truly require it. Insurers will flock to California when they have clear, predictable rules and can operate economically. As more companies come, consumers will benefit from increased choice, better coverage, and lower prices.

Third, improving transparency. The CDI must hold itself accountable for results. I will publish an annual report that compares California’s insurance rates to all the other Western states, adjusted for the cost of living, so the public sees an objective benchmark of California’s market versus other, similarly wildfire-affected states.

Our broken insurance system has led to an unsustainable increase in the FAIR Plan, quadrupling its exposure between 2021 and 2025. Ultimately, fixing the regular market will give customers better options and allow the FAIR Plan to shrink. In the meantime, all insurance companies operating in California must be required to invest in the FAIR Plan’s operations so that it offers acceptable service. As the regular market heals, FAIR Plan pricing must become actuarially sound as already required by law to lead customers towards better and cheaper coverage in the regular market. The FAIR Plan must stop being a liability on our insurance system and return to being a small, temporary, last-resort stopgap.

Finally, we must also act vigorously to lower costs by reducing wildfire risks. California’s state government is partly to blame through poor land management. We need more responsible controlled burns and sustained investment in prevention. At the same time, we should require insurance companies to provide clear, actionable guidance to homeowners about how to reduce risk with meaningful discounts for doing so. Today, homeowners often invest in fire-hardening and see little benefit in their premiums. That needs to change.

For the first time in twenty years, we have a wide-open Insurance Commissioner primary and the chance to elect someone with real experience. I would be honored to serve as your next Insurance Commissioner, and I ask for your vote. If elected Insurance Commissioner, I will be a Wolff on your side.

Patrick Wolff is a candidate for California Insurance Commissioner in the June 2026 primary.

Orange County Register

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Patrick Wolff: Taking on the insurance crisis with experience, not politics

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