This November, for the first time ever, there are two Democratic candidates on the ballot for the under-the-radar but important job of California insurance commissioner: State Sen. Ben Allen and former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim.
Whoever takes on the role will inherit an insurance market in turmoil. California homeowner-insurance premiums have risen 84 percent between 2020 and March 2026. Many insurance firms have cancelled California policies or refused to write new ones, as policyholders pay the price for inflation, increased wildfire risk and other environmental risk factors.
In the June primary, Kim and Allen emerged as the top two candidates in a crowded field; Kim took roughly 27 percent of the vote, and Allen 19 percent.
The two agree insurance commissioner is “the most powerful and important position that most people have never heard of.”
They disagree on what to do with that power.
Kim is running a progressive campaign. One of her central policy proposals is state-run single-payer natural-disaster insurance. All existing homes would be automatically covered, funded by a two-part insurance premium: The first is priced based on risk, while the second is based on property value.
“We would operate like an insurance company, except it would be nonprofit, and excess capital would always come back to the community, and not flow to shareholders and CEOs,” Kim said.
The policy would need to be approved by the California state legislature. Allen called Kim’s plan an “unprecedented idea that has very little chance of ever getting passed.”
The disagreement highlights a core difference between the candidates: Kim seeks to disrupt the status quo, while Allen focuses on strengthening the regulatory powers that are already part of the job.
Allen said that he plans to rely on his legislative experience to hold insurance companies accountable. He authored Senate Bill 1209, which was signed into law this September and allows the insurance commissioner to order insurance companies to fix issues that arose during investigations without going through a lengthy legal process.
“I’ve got a real record of accomplishment in insurance reforms and pro-consumer policies,” Allen said. “I’ll be ready on day one to continue that work if I’m elected to this position.”
The California insurance commissioner wasn’t always an elected position. The current commissioner, Ricardo Lara, will term out in January. He is the eighth person to hold the title since Californians voted to pass Proposition 103 in 1988, changing the position from governor-appointed to elected.
California is one of only 11 states that elect insurance commissioners, and by far the state with the largest insurance market.
The insurance commissioner leads California’s insurance department, which regulates home, auto, life, workers’ compensation and a few kinds of health insurance, making sure policies are available and premiums are affordable.
Jamie Court, president of the California-based nonprofit consumer advocacy firm Consumer Watchdog, said the position has “huge” regulatory powers that “control an awful lot of the money that comes out of people’s pockets.”
“There’s not enough focus on the existing powers of the office and how to use them to help people,” Court said. “They have all the power in the world; they just need to use it.”
Kim is endorsed by, among others, the California Teachers Association, the California Nurses Association and the California Working Families Party, where she served as state director from January 2022 through January 2026.
She is also backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom she joined at a political rally earlier this month in support of Proposition 40, the one-time, 5% tax on billionaires.
“We just want somebody who’s going to go in there, take on the status quo, fight for working people in the office,” said Jorge Contreras, state director of the California Working Families Party. “We want a change-maker in Sacramento, and we believe that Jane is that person.”
Allen’s list of endorsements include the California Democratic Party, California Environmental Voters, the Sierra Club, California Professional Firefighters and the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Ben Allen is the person in this race who has demonstrated not only the first-hand experience of working with consumers, but drafting and putting forward and passing legislation that protects them,” said Matt Abularach-Macias, campaigns director of California Environmental Voters.
Allen has received more backing from PACs, whereas outside spending to support Kim is outweighed by outside spending against her. Californians for an Affordable Future, a PAC backed by crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, has amassed roughly $2 million for Allen.
Despite the differences in funding, a recent poll showed that Kim has a small lead over Allen, but more than half of voters remain undecided. Because two Democrats are vying for this position, it could be Republican and Independent voters that determine the race, said Court.
No matter who wins on Nov. 3, it will be a historic election. Kim would be the first woman to take on the role, and Allen would be the first commissioner whose own home was directly impacted by a major natural disaster.
“All we need is a competent regulator at the helm to fix this thing,” Court said. “And I think that’s either of them.”
Jane Kim would be an unnatural and unmitigated disaster as CA’s next insurance commissioner at this critical junction.
The last thing will need to do is to “socialize” the costs and risks of insuring homes in fire prone sub-urban areas.
Those costs should be fully borne by the building owners in those areas and we should be actively discourage development in the WUI (Wilderness Urban Interface) form both an environmental as well as economic sustainability perspective.
For the Love of Christ, she’s a dangerous — albeit persistent — ideologue with, of course, absolutely no experience in this a subject area.
What could be more bonehead, if not downright Trumpian, than hiring such an unqualified person for this critical job?
Love when people recognize that “remaking” is usually a disaster when it comes to people arguing to defund BART to force it to streamline operations, but then conveniently ignoring that amateurs proposing massive changes to complex systems almost always makes them worse when it comes to a product every person in the state needs to buy directly or indirectly.
Jane Kim defended a cop she was friends with and politically allied with, who was convicted of DV for beating his wife, who also threatened to have his wife deported and kept away from their child. She was one of four votes that kept an admitted abuser who isn’t allowed to own a gun to stay on as sheriff.
The Ross Mirkarimi scandal may have been a long time ago, but the stain survives. He went on to oversee a department that forced inmates in jail to fight each other for sport, and lost two patients at SF General for months who died.
Sorry, I’m a progressive, but incompetence and lack of accountability aren’t values I want in office.
I don’t know anything about Jane Kim except that she wants to oust the insurance companies and replace them with a public bureau. For that, she gets my vote. As originally drafted, Obamacare was supposed to be a single-payer system. Then the GOP stonewalled it, so the insurance companies were reluctantly let back in, with the proviso that there would be “a public option”. They wouldn’t let that in either. So it became what it is, a good idea that didn’t really work out.
If Obama had what Trump has–a Congress and a Supreme Court on his own short leash–he could have done a lot of good, and Merrick Garland would be on the SC. Trump kept saying that he had a better plan for healthcare. When pressed for details, he murmured “well, it’s not a plan, really–more like concepts of a plan”. If he could open his mouth without lies spilling out willy-nilly, he would have said, “the name of my plan is “I Don’t Care”. Not “Trumpcare”, because Trump doesn’t care. Neither do the insurance companies.
honestly, while Kim’s lack of state legislative experience not “disqualifying”, as this isn’t the first time we’ve had a non-legislator in that position, I’d prefer someone who had the experience. HOWEVER – there is a big drawback there. Allen and most all the others in the past have relied on their contacts, who rely on insurance company donations. I’m far from a conspiracy theorist, and certainly don’t think it’s a bad thing to have all the necessary contacts, but you end up with the perception of “I know how it works and I can just tweak a few things and it will great”. But if something is systemic, and simply doesn’t work, repairing it is like souping up the engine on a car that’s driving the wrong direction. Maybe it’s time to help steer? Now, I’ve met Kim and she’s a total ****. I wouldn’t want to hang out with her, but she’s smart as hell and she certainly follows that old lawyer statement, “He’s an a-hole, but he’s MY a-hole”. Maybe she’ll be terrible, but honestly, it’s a hot mess. We tried to insure multiple properties at my company and it’s been insane. They want piles of money, some refuse to even insure us. We’re not even in a fire zone! And my own home and car insurance, going up all the time. I remember, in 1998 I had a seizure…. totally out of nowhere. One time. After that, I couldn’t get health insurance until 2013-2014. For 15yrs I was paying out of pocket. And you know what happened in 2013? ObamaCare. So, don’t pretend that public insurance is not possible. And don’t pretend that the $50/month health insurance that some people ramble on about would actually cover your cancer treatments or whatever. We’ve got lots of rules here, but the insurance companies use them as leverage over controls. “Don’t make that rule or we’ll abandon CA. Look at us, we’re already doing it.”. If there was a state option, that would provide a stop to that. They make a HUGE amount of profits. And they’re not going to be tweaked. So, yeah, Kim got my vote even though I can’t stand her and she’s not as “qualified” as Allen.
We already have “amateur hour” in the highest office in the land and look how well that’s worked out.
The last thing we should be doing is replicating that at the state level.
Accordingly, Jane Kim is an automatic DQ.
Jane Kim was a good supervisor for SOMA. But the skills needed to represent a diverse community are very different from those needed to run the state insurance market. In every interview with her for this role, she retreats into shallow platitudes. I don’t really see how she is qualified for this job.
Jane Kim is a brilliant Boalt Hall graduate, Ben Allen can’t come close to matching that. She should have defeated Scott Wiener and should therefore be in the legislature now.
Jane Kim is, no doubt, smart — but she is also an “”ideological idiot” — both can be true and the later characteristic is the key disqualifier.
But she didn’t, so she wasn’t, and now she’s not.