ICYMI: As California FAIR Plan Rates Jump to Historic Highs, Extreme Weather Survivors and Department of Angels Bring Insurance Commissioner Candidates Face-to-Face with Disaster Survivors

California disaster survivors, community leaders, and candidates discuss rising insurance costs, claims challenges, and solutions to the state's worsening insurance crisis.

Watch the full event recording: ewsurvivors.org/caroundtablelive (14:39 Discussion with Jane Kim | 1:44:45 Discussion with Ben Allen)

CALIFORNIA, October 19, 2026 — Last week, Extreme Weather Survivors (EWS) and Department of Angels hosted a first-of-its-kind forum bringing extreme weather survivors and community leaders into direct conversation with California State Senator Ben Allen and former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim, both candidates for California Insurance Commissioner, to discuss solutions for the state's growing insurance crisis.

The timely forum took place as fires sparked across Southern California amid red flag warnings and power outages. At the same time, California’s insurer of last resort, the FAIR Plan hit policyholders with an average rate increase of 29.1%.—the largest rate hike in recent history. For thousands of Californians already struggling with reduced coverage options, delayed or denied insurance payouts, and dwindling or the end of additional living expense coverage, this increase represents a grave threat to California families.

Facilitated by Levi Sumagasay of CalMatters at the Maxwell House in Pasadena, California, survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires, recent San Diego floods, and other extreme weather disasters shared their firsthand experiences navigating the insurance system, including delays and denials, rising premiums, rebuilding without a promise of insurance in the future or any financial benefit for home hardening, or attempting to prevent the next fire and the long road to recovery. A theme evident throughout much of the discussion was who should pay for the rising costs of all these disasters. All questions posed in this roundtable were written and grounded in the real experiences of those most directly impacted by the broken insurance system.

“The California insurance commissioner should be your biggest advocate,” said Jane Kim, former San Francisco Supervisor. “It should be a watchdog for consumers and not a lapdog for corporations."

“If I were to be elected as California’s Insurance Commissioner, I'd be the first person in the history of the position who’s had a major disaster occur in my own community, so this is really personal for me,” said Ben Allen, California State Senator. “We absolutely need to be having survivors deeply involved in crafting the solutions to this incredibly complex and broken system.”

“The only way we can fix the system is by hearing from and really listening to the people in this room,” said Sierra Kos, co-founder of Extreme Weather Survivors. “By sharing their painful, hard-fought knowledge, they are giving us a gift to make it better for the next community hit by extreme weather, which we know is happening with more frequency and severity.”

“I am my mother's physical manifestation of the American dream; our home had been in my husband's family for 5 generations,” said Monica Loya-Clark, California fire survivor. “It’s such a horrendous trauma to lose all your worldly possessions, everything you and your family have worked for over the course of lifetimes, but the biggest obstacle to us being able to move forward is insurance. Our situations are not unique. There are thousands of us still waiting to get paid out by our insurance.”

“Our house was saved, but it was heavily contaminated with lead, arsenic, and nickel, and 21 months later, we are still not back home and are still fighting with State Farm to be paid what we are owed,” said Rossana Valverde, California fire survivor. “I'm a 70-year-old, mother-of-four, and now grandmother, and I’m worried because these catastrophic events are no longer rare. There is a constant, relentless barrage of fires, floods, hurricanes, and extreme windstorms, and this is not normal. We need an insurance commissioner who will stand up to massive utilities, insurance companies, and powerful oil and gas corporations. They must be brought to the table to shoulder a portion of the costs and provide direct relief to those of us like me who have survived the extreme weather that they created.”