Jane Kim will win the race for California insurance commissioner, easily surpassing Southern California State Sen. Ben Allen by more than 600,000 votes, NBC News projected Monday.
With 77% of the expected ballots counted as of Monday, Kim, a former San Francisco supervisor, had earned more than 53% of the vote, compared with Allen’s 46%.
Kim, who was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, ran as a self-described “unapologetic” and “populist” candidate seeking to overhaul the state’s insurance system. Her proposals included creating a single-payer disaster insurance system and lowering other insurance costs for consumers.
“California shouldn’t just be blue. We should be bold, and we will govern the way we ran, ambitiously with some big ideas,” Kim said after declaring victory on social media.
Allen, whose family was affected by the 2025 Palisades Fire, lost the race despite receiving endorsements from U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, as well as the California Democratic Party. The outgoing state senator had pushed to reform the existing insurance system to encourage insurers to return to California.
Single-payer disaster insurance policy
Kim appears to want to model California’s system after New Zealand’s, where homeowners who purchase coverage from a private insurer automatically receive natural disaster insurance that covers events such as storms, floods and earthquakes.
“We put out some big and bold ideas on how to transform insurance, including a publicly run nonprofit disaster insurance program,” Kim told NBC Los Angeles.
Under her proposal, the public disaster insurance system would provide automatic and universal coverage to homeowners, with premiums determined by a home’s risk level and property value.
Kim argues that the public system would help address climate change by providing homeowners with a financial incentive to take mitigation measures. For example, a property owner who regularly clears brush and uses fire-resistant materials when building or renovating a home could pay a lower premium for fire coverage.
Proposals to overhaul the FAIR plan
As Kim pushes for a single-payer disaster insurance plan, she is also expected to pursue changes to the California FAIR Plan, an association of private insurers in the state, when she takes office.
The FAIR Plan is intended as an insurer of last resort for homeowners who cannot obtain coverage through the traditional private insurance market, often because their properties are considered high-risk for wildfires. Its limited coverage, along with the broader insurance crisis, has created additional challenges for some wildfire survivors in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena seeking coverage for rebuilt homes or navigating claims to pay for reconstruction.
Last year, a California judge ruled that the FAIR Plan’s handling of smoke-damage claims was unlawful, finding that denying or underpaying claims for smoke damage violated the California Insurance Code.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, insurers, including the FAIR Plan, will also be prohibited from outright denying smoke-damage claims without first conducting a proper “good faith” investigation. However, California Department of Insurance Bulletin 2025-7, issued by outgoing Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, does not specify how the new guidelines will be enforced.
“You shouldn’t be penalized for using the business that you’ve been paying into, often for decades,” she said. “And then I want them to pay you interest every day they deny, delay, or underpay a valid claim.”
Kim has pledged to make the FAIR Plan “more transparent, accountable and sustainable” while using her enforcement powers to ensure smoke-damage claims are not improperly denied or underpaid.
She has also proposed requiring insurance companies to publish quarterly reports detailing how they resolve smoke-damage claims.
While private insurance companies have previously cited the frequency of wildfires in Southern California as a threat to their business viability, potentially forcing them to leave the state, Kim dismissed the threat.
“We are 10 to 15% of the bottom line of the top 10 carriers. They want to stay in California. They’d love to threaten us, but they don’t actually want to leave behind the money that we provide,” she said.
Can Kim deliver?
While Kim has ambitious proposals that could potentially shake up the state’s insurance market, one industry insider said the incoming insurance commissioner should get a reality check with how much power she has.
“The reality of regulating the insurance industry here in California, even though she’s an elected commissioner, the commissioner only has so much authority,” Amy Bach, the executive director of United Policyholders, a nonprofit that helps people navigate insurance issues. “The legislature has to approve things that are new and different.”
Bach, who did not endorse Kim or Allen, said she hopes Kim will build off what the legislature and others have already done.
“There’s a tremendous amount of work, energy, programs, money that people have already been putting into reducing wildfire risk. That is our best bet for bringing the prices down,” Bach said. “And we want to make sure we keep that momentum going.”
The American Property Casualty Insurance Association, a national trade group for home, auto and business insurers, congratulated Kim for her win, saying it looks forward to working with her.
“While recent reforms are beginning to stabilize the market, the insurance crisis is far from over, and a full recovery will take time, the association said in a statement. “Protecting this progress is critical. Costly new mandates or regulatory actions that drive up costs or limit coverage options risk reversing this progress and worsening the crisis.”
Kim said she has met with members of the insurance industry and plans to continue those discussions, bringing insurers to the table alongside labor leaders and consumers.