Fire survivors urge Gov. Newsom to call for Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara’s resignation following New York Times report

Survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires are calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to urge California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara to resign following a New York Times investigation into the new insurance regulations aimed at assisting homeowners in fire zones.

The report found that California’s FAIR Plan, intended as an insurance pool of last resort, has become the only option for hundreds of thousands of homeowners. State officials never intended for that to happen.

Instead, “a series of loopholes quietly negotiated by the insurance industry” neutralized requirements that would’ve resulted in many of those homes being covered by traditional insurance companies, the New York Times reports.

“The deal was sold to the public as a way to keep people out of the state’s high-cost, low-benefit FAIR Plan, but just the opposite happened. FAIR Plan nearly doubled, and many families lost coverage just months before the Los Angeles fires,” Consumer Watchdog, a consumer advocacy nonprofit organization, said in a press release.

In a statement to KTLA, Michael Soller, deputy insurance commissioner, invited “public scrutiny to make things better for consumers.”

“For months the Department of Insurance worked with the New York Times to provide facts and data that formed the basis of their reporting. Their conclusions are their own, but we invite public scrutiny to make things better for consumers,” Soller said in a statement to KTLA

Lara also responded to the New York Times article with a post on X.

“I won’t accept another 30 years of stagnant regulations. I’m here to finish the job — and leave the next Commissioner in a stronger position than I inherited,” the post said in part. “For 30 years under past Commissioners, no coverage guarantee of any kind existed. This is an undeniable first and we are focused on stopping the growth of the FAIR Plan and making these regulations work for those who need coverage the most.”

KTLA reached out to Newsom’s office for a statement but didn’t receive a comment in time for publication.