Endorsement: Ben Allen for insurance commissioner

California voters are facing a number of significant races in the general election ranging from the high-profile contest to fill an open governor’s seat to an initiative that could limit local tax increases. Yet the race for the little-followed position of insurance commissioner could have the most reverberations. Quite simply, the insurance industry — the lifeblood of the state’s real estate market — is facing an existential threat.

We don’t issue such warnings lightly. As many beleaguered homeowners know, California’s property insurance market has been in a free fall since 2023, after State Farm — the dominant home-insurance underwriter — stopped writing new policies. Other companies pulled back. The proximate cause: Costly wildfires threatened their financial stability. The fundamental cause: California’s system of insurance price controls had impeded their ability to adjust rates to meet risk.

So insurers started pulling back, leaving record numbers of Californians scrambling for insurance, underinsured or dependent on the state-created FAIR (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements) Plan. As a result, that safety-net insurer approached the financial brink. Although slow to react, Commissioner Ricardo Lara created the Sustainable Insurance Strategy — a series of significant reforms that have stabilized the market and bolstered the FAIR Plan. Insurance is still too expensive, but California’s market is recovering.

That brings us to the current election. It pits state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, against Jane Kim, the former San Francisco supervisor and one-time state director of the far-left Working Families Party. She received the most votes in the primary in a crowded field. We had endorsed Patrick Wolff, an insurance expert, but were impressed with Allen, also. He brings a wealth of legislative experience to the table, and is thoughtful, detail-oriented and not particularly ideological — important traits for an office that oversees a large humdrum bureaucracy.

Most important: Allen is committed to continuing the Lara-era reforms that are steadily restoring the health of the property insurance industry. He’s sure to back some initiatives regarding, say, climate change, that give us heartburn, but he understands insurance markets and is committed to generating competition and staying the reform course. That is the key to restoring the industry’s health and assuring that consumers can find affordable policies.

Enter Kim. She has no real insurance background. She is an ideologue who promises to socialize a large portion of the home-insurance industry. Not only will that put taxpayers on the hook for liabilities now assumed by private companies, it will turn over matters to government agencies. We’re not surmising here — Kim proudly boasts about her plans. Anyone who has watched California’s government operate over the last few decades knows that any such “disaster insurance for all” system will be bureaucratic, wasteful and plagued with scandal.

As we argued in our primary editorial, “She wants a publicly run single-payer system, which would destroy California’s market. Even if she’s unable to implement these long-timeframe proposals, she would trigger a further exodus of insurers with her trial-lawyer/consumer-activist approach to insurance regulation.” If you think disaster insurance is problematic now, just wait until government runs it.

We understand homeowners’ frustration with insurance companies, but the answer is not to turn the system over to bureaucrats, activists and unions. Your ability to find affordable, quality insurance may depend on this election outcome.

We strongly urge a vote for Ben Allen.

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