California’s New Insurance Commissioner — Jane Kim & Single-Payer Wildfire Insurance

California’s just elected insurance commissioner is a socialist. The staff and management of PIA California congratulate her on her election victory and look forward to working with her and the California Department of Insurance in the next four years.

A member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Jane Kim ran as a Democrat but wasn’t endorsed by the Democratic Party.

It endorsed her opponent, Ben Allen.

In her campaign information and statements, the former San Francisco Supervisor — also not endorsed by the San Francisco Chronicle who considered electing her a “disaster” — emphasized the need for a big change in homeowners insurance in California. She wants the state to form a single-payer insurance company to insure homes.

Kim hasn’t said anything about doing away with private homeowners insurance. She has proposed the Legislature creating Natural Disaster Insurance for All to give disaster insurance coverage for all California homeowners. Under her proposal, all homeowners are placed in a pool and premiums will be based on the value of the property and not the risk of it being destroyed by fire or other disasters.

Kim is also pushing for a similar state insurance company for auto insurance.

The worry by insurers, associations representing the industry and many in the know is the Legislature actually enacting her idea. Another concern is the cost of implementing a single-payer homeowners insurance system.

Kim says it won’t cost that much.

“It would be nonprofit, and so any excess capital would stay in the state of California and would be used to drive down risk,” Kim said few weeks ago. “That’s the most important piece about this actually, is that it would create another revenue stream for mitigation.”

Source link: New York Post — https://bit.ly/4sRUu4x

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