Provide Natural Disaster Insurance for All

Jane is proposing a single-payer disaster insurance policy for every Californian: Natural Disaster Insurance for All. Other countries have established single-payer universal disaster insurance. For example, in New Zealand, homeowners buy policies from private insurers, but disaster coverage is provided by the state. France and Spain also have a guaranteed home disaster insurance policy.

Meanwhile, the FAIR Plan - which exists to stabilize insurers, not protect Californians - falls woefully short when it comes to actually covering Californians. It insures over six hundred thousand people, but isn’t public insurance; it’s a privately run program designed by the insurance industry to protect itself. Its coverage is limited, and it charges punishingly high premiums, leaving people underinsured.

A public, nonprofit disaster insurance system would do the opposite. Coverage would be automatic and universal. Everyone would be in the same pool and pay premiums based on factors like property value or risk. A nonprofit program doesn’t need to generate shareholder profits or fund marketing budgets. Investment returns stay in California, strengthening reserves instead of padding executive compensation.

But the real difference is structural: a public system would address climate disaster instead of avoiding it. The private insurance business model is to avoid losses, not to reduce risk. When wildfire exposure grows, insurance companies don’t invest in fire prevention or community resilience - they pack up and leave taxpayers to foot the bill. We have socialized the costs of climate catastrophe but privatized the gains.

A public insurer would invest in prevention and resiliency, and the public would benefit with fewer claims to pay out. A state-run model could tie premiums directly to mitigation, giving homeowners clear and transparent financial incentives to harden properties and communities to invest in defensible space. It could also support low-income households with mitigation, and advance landscape-level risk reduction to better protect whole communities. A portion of the state pool could be invested in resilience infrastructure: fuel management, firefighting capacity, and early warning systems. It could require the worst corporate polluters to pay into the system, connecting the source of climate risk to its costs. And it could guarantee coverage in high-risk areas, because abandoning communities isn’t an option when you’re accountable to people instead of shareholders.

Make sure premiums actually pay for claims – or lower them

Insurance companies should spend premium dollars on their intended purpose: protecting policyholders. If companies collect more than they need to cover claims and a reasonable profit, that money should go back to policyholders or be invested in statewide resilience, not huge payouts at our expense – like the $27 million salary one insurance company CEO was paid last year.

California will establish minimum loss ratio standards calculated over rolling three-year periods to account for catastrophe volatility:

• Auto insurance: 70% minimum (three-year average)

• Homeowners insurance: 65% minimum (three-year average)

Provide low-cost auto insurance through a public option

California already operates a public, non profit auto insurance program for low income Californians. Jane will expand this program to make an affordable public option for auto insurance available to everyone.

Show how insurance companies spend your money

Californians deserve to know whether their premiums are being spent to protect us, or to pay for Superbowl ads. As Insurance Commissioner, Jane will compile expenditure data, make it searchable online, and publish an annual "Where Your Premium Goes" report. 

Invest in making homes and communities safer

This year, the California Department of Insurance will roll out a new Safe Homes grants program to provide funding for home hardening investments for wildfire resilience. As Insurance Commissioner, Jane will work to make this public investment as broad as possible, with permanent ongoing funding.