Survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires on Thursday urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to call for the resignation of California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, following a report that Lara privately struck a deal with insurers allowing them to drop tens of thousands of policyholders ahead of the January wildfires.
Citing a recent New York Times investigation, members of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network pointed to a 2023 deal Lara struck a secret deal with insurance companies that incentivized them to cancel the homeowners’ policies in exchange for future rate hikes. Fire survivors say Insurance Department officials presented the deal “as a way to keep people out of the state’s high-cost, low-benefit FAIR Plan,” which aims to provide basic fire insurance coverage for high-risk properties when insurers refuse to issue policies — but the opposite occurred. The FAIR Plan nearly doubled, and many families lost coverage just months before the LA County fires.
At a press conference in Altadena, survivors said California faces two crises during Newsom and Lara’s tenures: families who can no longer buy or renew insurance, and those who still have coverage but cannot access benefits…