California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara failed to show up Tuesday at a hearing he himself had demanded into State Farm’s proposed new rate hikes for home insurance in the wake of the recent wildfires in Los Angeles.
State Farm and other insurers have been leaving the state and canceling existing policies over the past several years, as California has prevented them from raising premiums to account for future risks, forcing them to lose money.
As a result, many households in Los Angeles, especially in Pacific Palisades, lost their insurance in the months or even days before the January 7 Palisades fire. Some were forced to use the public option, the California FAIR Plan, which covers much less; others were left without any insurance at all. Lara finally announced new rules in December that would allow insurers to price future risk into their premiums, but the change came too late for many homeowners.
Last month, Lara “provisionally” granted State Farm permission to raise rates 22%, but demanded that it explain its decision “in an open, transparent hearing” scheduled for April 8.
Yet on the day of the State Farm hearing, according to Bay Area ABC affiliate KGO, Lara was absent:
The state’s top insurance boss, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, was not present.
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7 On Your Side attended the hearing Tuesday with the expectation of seeing the commissioner listening to arguments from both sides — specifically the data he requested from State Farm to prove these hikes are justified.
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State Farm is now asking for an average 17% rate increase for homeowners, 15% for renters and up to 38% for rental dwellings, arguing the increase is needed to rebuild capital following the Los Angeles County fires.
As Breitbart News noted at the time, Lara had already skipped a relevant legislative hearing last month to attend a conference with insurance executives in Bermuda.
Lara was elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. He calls himself the “First openly gay person to ever be elected to statewide office in CA history” on his Instagram page, and adds that he is also a “Fighter for consumer rights.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
