They say they just want to account for climate change in rates.
Regulation in California has kept rates down for homeowners while earning theinsurance industrya healthy profit.
Heres what we learned when we dug beneath the surface of the insurance industrys claims.
More than 12,000 structures have been destroyed in the fires.David McNew/Getty Images
The last five years were even better.
News reports now suggest that Southern California Edisons equipment may have startedat least twoofthe L.A. fires.
If proven, insurance companies will be in line for billions more in repayments.
Theres no question that insurance companies face real cost pressures.
It started with the Covid-19 pandemic, which spurred supply chain problems that raised rebuilding costs.
Next came inflation, which increased material and labor costs, again driving up the price to rebuild.
Homeowners in fire areas saw much larger rate hikes.
Yet insurance companies are still restricting coverage.
The insurance industry isnt letting a good crisis go to waste.
The industrys biggest target is Californias system of insurance oversight known as Proposition 103.
Prop 103s premise is simple: Transparency will ensure fair pricing.
The insurance industry wants to roll back that law and California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has become their champion.
When lawmakers refused to take up the legislation, Commissioner Lara announced he would do it by regulation instead.
Florida laws already allow everything the insurance industry just won from Lara in California.
Homeowners need a different approach.
Theres plenty of precedent for such a mandate.
In California, auto insurance companies must sell to every good driver.
At the same time, insurance companies have gotten a pass for their own complicity in climate change.
Its time for insurance companies to get out of the fossil fuel business and stop driving climate change.
This is a nonpartisan idea that will benefit Florida as much as California.
A nonprofit government reinsurance program can backstop insurers as we move towards building more sustainable communities.
Ultimately, there are some places where it will be unsafe to continue rebuilding.
That means incentivizing smarter development and investments in communities to reduce risk from wildfires and other weather disasters.
Carmen Balber is the executive director of Los Angeles-based nonprofitConsumer Watchdog.
