Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said Sunday that a large, class action lawsuit may be the only way to make victims of the recent Los Angeles fires whole, after many lost their insurance due to the state’s price controls on policy premiums.
As Breitbart News had already been warning for two years, California was headed toward an insurance “debacle” because of the policies of Governor Gavin Newsom and Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.
Breitbart News noted:
California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara — who authored the state’s own “Medicare for All” proposal — won’t let insurance companies charge higher premiums for the growing risks that climate change activists say are on the way (and that skeptics blame on poor forestry).
The Wall Street Journal notes that California is the only state that requires insurance companies to set premium prices based on past risks, not on future ones.
The intention — to give Lara the benefit of the doubt — is a noble one. Homes are already absurdly expensive in California, as is the cost of doing business. Keeping insurance premiums down is a nice idea.
But when prices are so low that they make insurance unprofitable, companies leave or collapse. That means Californians may struggle to find insurance — and, ironically, may be forced to pay more for it, as the supply of policies shrinks.
The state’s experiment in socialism meant that many homeowners in the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire lost their private insurance in the months, weeks, and even days before the disaster. Many were forced to use the state’s own insurer of last resort, the California FAIR Plan, which offers a much lower level of coverage than private plans. Some — who could not replace their lost insurance policies in time — found themselves with no fire insurance at all.
Issa, speaking to Breitbart News Sunday on SiriusXM Patriot 125, said that one solution to the insurance crisis, going forward, would be to pass federal legislation to allow insurance to be sold across state lines. State Farm, for example, had a massive nationwide surplus of $145.2 billion last year, even as it pulled out of the troubled California market.
Breitbart · Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) – March 16, 2025“The monopoly that this state has, where they can drive the insurance company out, and then require you have insurance from them [the state] as a carrier … has to stop. This state is only interested in regulating, not in making sure that people really have coverage,” Issa said, noting that utility bills were also rising due to the risk of power lines causing fires.
He said that the federal government should respond by allowing Californians to buy insurance elsewhere.
“The Constitution envisioned that there would be no barriers between the states,” he said, saying that insurance should no longer be considered one of the “agency” powers that are left for states to regulate on their own.
For those who lost their insurance in California, Issa said, there might only be one recourse: namely, to sue insurers such as California FAIR in a class action over their refusal to compensate homeowners adequately for their losses.
Issa, who grew up in the Altadena area, described visiting the area after the fire, and noted that the state’s failure to clear decades of fuel that had built up in the forests had led to the catastrophe. He added that it would be nearly impossible for some families, who had added onto their homes over decades, to rebuild what they had lost.
Issa also described his lawsuit against California over its practice of allowing ballots to be counted even if they arrive up to seven days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. He noted that late ballots tend to favor Democrats, and that the practice had already been struck down in other states.
“It matters that we have fair and honest elections,” he said, noting that he expected the case to make its way, ultimately, to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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.
