Gavin Newsom calls for CA homeowner insurance recommendations in executive order

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday asked the Department of Insurance to make recommendations about California’s troubled home insurance market as part of a larger effort to better understand how the state can mitigate damage from natural disasters.

That request came in an executive order, which the Governor’s Office said was an effort to speed up the work required under a new state law. That law, authored by state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, calls state agencies to produce a report by next year.

“We’re taking a whole-of-government response to protect Californians from wildfire while boosting coverage options and bringing down costs,” Newsom said in news release.

Senate Bill 254, which Newsom signed in September, calls for the state to come up with long-term changes to “protect access to insurance, reduce litigation costs, provide fair and expeditious compensation to claimants, support wildfire mitigation, safety, and community resilience, and ensure large electrical corporations are accountable for safety and also have the financial health to attract low-cost capital on behalf of ratepayers.”

Californians have had to pay higher prices to find home insurance coverage or use the state’s backup provider in recent years as companies have restricted business in response to losses from fires and rising risks of future ones.

“The Governor is exactly right: we need a ‘whole-of-government’ approach to keep moving in the right direction,” Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement about Newsom’s order.

It asks the department to provide feedback and suggestions on the accessibility of property coverage, as well as a state-supported property insurance plan for wildfires and other disasters, publicly-funded financial aid to help make insurance rates more affordable, and other proposals.

“Many of the ideas in the executive order are promising,” said Carmen Balber, the executive director of Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy organization that often challenges rate increases by property insurance companies, “but they have to be paired with requirements that the insurance industry invest in making communities safer from wildfires and provide coverage to those that do.”

The governor also asked the California Public Utilities Commission to participate in the effort and directed Cal Fire, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety to be involved.

“It’s vital that the stability and health of California’s insurance market remain a priority as work is being done on this report, and insurers are looking forward to participating in the process,” said Denni Ritter, a lobbyist for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, a nationwide trade group.

The California Earthquake Authority will be required to submit a report to the Legislature and governor by April with recommendations.

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