Guest Commentary written by

Patrick Wolff

Patrick Wolff, a Democrat, is running for insurance commissioner. He is a financial analyst and investor and was a U.S. chess champion and an international grandmaster. 

With the first anniversary of the devastating Southern California wildfires approaching, CalMatters asked candidates for the 2026 state Insurance Commissioner race to share thoughts on what the state can do to help victims and stabilize insurers. Read each candidate’s response here.

California’s insurance regulation is dysfunctional because politicians with no relevant qualifications keep running for Insurance Commissioner as a stepping stone.

I am a lifelong Democrat with over two decades of insurance and financial experience, first building an auto and home insurance brokerage business, then working as a financial analyst. This is my first run for elected office, and I will not run for any other office if elected. 

My only ambition is to fix what Sacramento has broken.

Solving our insurance crisis starts with reorienting the California Department of Insurance. It is too lax regulating insurance companies’ behavior, yet too strict controlling their market access. Customers lose both ways. My plan flips the script, holding insurance companies accountable while increasing choice and competition. 

The recently formed Smoke Claims & Remediation Task Force is an example of failing to hold insurance companies accountable. Modern wildfires cause unprecedented smoke damage, requiring new coverage standards. But reporting reveals the task force unacceptably favors insurance companies over science. I will create a new, unbiased task force to issue trustworthy standards and then make insurance companies follow them.

Another failure of accountability is claims payments. The state insurance department collects Market Conduct Annual Statements, identifying insurers who unfairly delay or deny claims. However, the insurance industry has lobbied to anonymize this data, shielding individual companies. I will have the insurance department release company-specific data and publish a claims performance report card for each insurance company, empowering customers to reward good actors and punish bad actors.

Customer empowerment requires robust choice and competition, yet the insurance department strangles both with bureaucratic red tape. Insurance companies filing product or rate changes wait 300 days for review versus 60 days in other states, and with much less predictable decisions than any other state because the department micromanages every case.

These endless delays and capricious rulings are disastrous, leading to insurers canceling policies and leaving California. I will streamline filing timelines and reserve strict reviews only for special cases as needed. Insurance companies will flock to our gigantic market once they have clear rules providing the reasonable certainty and flexibility they need to operate economically. 

As more companies come, more choice and competition will follow.

With strong regulation holding insurance companies accountable and empowering customers, ample choice and competition will prevent price gouging. But to hold ourselves accountable that the market is working and pricing is fair, I will publish an annual benchmarking report comparing California to all other western, fire-affected states.

As insurance becomes plentiful in California again, people will no longer need to turn to the FAIR Plan in desperation. Nevertheless, the FAIR Plan remains necessary and must be bolstered. I will require all insurance companies doing business in California to invest in improving FAIR Plan service. In return, we must allow FAIR Plan rates to become fully actuarially sound, as required by statute. This will stabilize FAIR Plan finances and incentivize customers to get better and cheaper coverage in the regular market.

Fixing insurance regulation can hold insurance companies accountable, provide transparency, make insurance widely available, prevent price gouging and stabilize the FAIR Plan. But to bring costs down to where they belong, we must aggressively reduce wildfire risk.

To protect homes, the state must provide clear home hardening guidance that aligns with insurance company underwriting and comes with accompanying discounts. Since home hardening helps everyone but burdens the homeowner, the insurance department must develop financial assistance programs homeowners need and deserve. 

Statewide, the way to sustainably lower the cost of wildfire risk — plus save lives and property — is to take better care of our forests. It is outrageous that our state government has allowed wildfire risk to get so bad. As Insurance Commissioner, I will fight relentlessly for better forest management.

California needs and deserves a functioning insurance system. With the right leadership, we can finally make insurance work the way it should for everyone in California.

The candidate guest commentaries are being published in the order in which they were received.