By Will McCarthy and CAMILLE VON KAENEL, POLITICO
Wildfires are heating up the property insurance fight — and it’s boiling over on to the ballot measure campaign trail, our colleague Will McCarthy reports (opens in new tab).
Since its narrow passage in 1988, Proposition 103 has set the rules for insurers doing business in California, requiring an elected insurance commissioner to approve any rate changes. The initiative helped keep the state’s insurance rates below many other states, even those with lower cost of living, saving consumers more than $150 billion (opens in new tab).
But the sight of insurers pulling coverage from risky neighborhoods has threatened that consensus. The rapidly intensifying effects of climate-related disasters — notably the tens of billions of dollars in covered losses due to the Los Angeles wildfires — may push more companies out of the state entirely. (opens in new tab)
At a Sacramento event hosted last week by the Western Insurance Agents Association, a leading insurance lobbyist proposed amending Prop 103 so that lawmakers could change the state’s insurance regime without having to go back to voters each time — although he says it was just a thought exercise.
Consumer Watchdog, which made its name after overcoming nearly $80 million in industry spending to pass Prop 103, is not ready to leave the 2026 or 2028 ballot to its longtime antagonists. The group has long contemplated an initiative that would require insurance companies to provide coverage to residents who fireproof their homes and to offer written justifications when coverage is denied.
“If they want to start a war, we’re happy to finish it,” Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court said of any insurance industry effort to revisit Prop 103. — WM, CvK
