California’s Insurance Crisis Is a Climate Crisis. Here’s the Candidate Ready to Fix Both.

The June 2 primary is almost here. One race on your ballot matters more for your monthly bills than you might think.

If you live in California, you already know the affordability crisis is escalating—especially when it comes to insurance. Premiums are climbing. Coverage is getting harder to find. Across California, families are being dropped from plans, left uninsured, or watching their rents climb from insurance costs passed down by landlords.

It’s not a mystery why this is happening. It’s the climate crisis.

And on June 2, one of the most important votes you’ll cast to do something about it is for an office most people overlook: California Insurance Commissioner.

What does the Insurance Commissioner actually do?

The Insurance Commissioner regulates the companies that insure 40 million Californians, the largest home insurance market in the nation, in one of the most powerful climate and affordability positions in the country. This person helps decide whether you can keep your coverage, what you pay for it, and whether insurance companies are held accountable when you need them most.

The Insurance Commissioner used to be an overlooked regulatory office. But with the climate crisis driving an escalating insurance affordability crisis in California, the stakes and responsibility for the Insurance Commissioner are higher than ever. Former Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi called it the second-hardest job in the state, behind only the Governor.

The Commissioner has real power: they approve the rate increases insurers can charge, set the rules for how companies treat you, oversee the FAIR Plan, and enforce the consumer protections that are supposed to keep you covered. They also have a powerful platform to push California’s leaders toward real solutions for affordability.

Why insurance and climate are the same conversation

Here’s the connection in plain terms: as climate-driven wildfires, floods, and extreme heat become more frequent and more destructive, the damage costs more to insure. Insurers pass those costs on to you or pull out of risky areas entirely. That’s why premiums are spiking and policies are disappearing.

We saw it after the January 2025 wildfires that tore through Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Santa Monica, Altadena, and Eaton, costing the lives of between 31 to 409 people and forcing almost 180,000 Californians to evacuate their homes amid one of the costliest climate disasters in our nation’s history. California’s FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort, was pushed to the brink. Private insurers raised rates and threatened to leave the state. 

Fire season is now year-round in California, fueled by worsening climate impacts like record-breaking heat, prolonged drought, low humidity, and high winds. These aren’t distant problems. They’re showing up in our monthly bills, forcing impossible choices.

You cannot solve the affordability crisis without confronting the climate crisis driving it. And you cannot trust the same corporate interests that profited from pollution for decades to put families first now.

The next Commissioner has to see all of it as one problem—because for California families, it already is.

Why Ben Allen is the climate-and-affordability choice for Insurance Commissioner

Of all the candidates in this race, State Senator Ben Allen is the only one with a 99% lifetime score on the California Environmental Scorecard: a proven record of consistent climate leadership when it matters most.

He has refused to take money from Big Oil and insurance companies. He authored landmark laws on plastic pollution and corporate accountability, and helped pass California’s climate bond (Proposition 4) to fund community resilience. And he’s the only candidate who has directly represented his community through an insurance crisis: Allen represents the Pacific Palisades community devastated by the 2025 fires, and he’s worked directly with survivors fighting to rebuild and to get the insurance payouts they were promised.

That experience shapes how he’d lead. Allen has been clear that the next Commissioner has to do a hard, balanced job: hold insurers accountable and keep them operating in California so families stay covered. He wants to shore up the FAIR Plan, make the Department of Insurance easier for ordinary people to navigate, and reward insurers who treat customers fairly after a disaster while pushing back on those who don’t.

What’s at stake on June 2

The next Insurance Commissioner will help decide whether California can adapt to a changing climate without forcing working families to bear the cost alone. That takes someone willing to connect the dots between climate pollution, corporate accountability, and your monthly bills to protect everyday Californians.

Ben Allen has spent his career doing exactly that.

The California primary is June 2, 2026. Make a plan to vote and choose Ben Allen for Insurance Commissioner on your ballot.

California Environmental Voters is working to build the political power to solve the climate crisis, advance justice, and create a roadmap for global action. [See our full 2026 endorsements →]