California needs someone to competently guide insurance system reforms and patch shortcomings as they arise. Patrick Wolff can do it, the editorial board says.

California insurance commissioner used to be considered a cushy landing pad for politicians to collect a paycheck while building statewide name recognition. 

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That’s because recent deadly wildfires exposed a crisis hiding in plain sight.

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Insurance premiums in California hadn’t sufficiently risen to account for climate change, poor forest management and development in fire-prone areas. Proposition 103, a voter-approved 1988 measure, established an onerous process for raising rates in the name of consumer protection.

Insurers begrudgingly stayed quiet for years. But when devastation from megafires revealed how unable they were to adequately price risk, they stopped renewing policies, restricted new business or left the state entirely.

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Everything from home mortgages to affordable housing development was thrown into chaos. Desperate homeowners fled to the state’s Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, which offers pricey, bare-bones coverage to people who can’t find it anywhere else. 

This was not a solution.

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Private insurers are responsible for claims that the FAIR Plan can’t cover, so they restricted coverage even further.

The Chronicle editorial board has begun rolling out its endorsements for California’s June primary election. In the weeks to come, we will publish our assessments of all the state races, including the governor’s race, plus local races and ballot measures. To read more about how the editorial board makes its election endorsements, go here.Plus: Look out for the Chronicle’s Voter Guide to publish in early May as ballots get mailed out across the Bay Area.

To slow this spiral, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara enacted a series of emergency reforms in late 2023 to give........

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