05/28/2026
A few people — friends, clients, and the occasional poor soul who thinks insurance agents are fun at parties — have asked me who I would vote for as California Insurance Commissioner.
So here is my honest take.
Insurance Commissioner is one of those races most people ignore until their home insurance gets non-renewed, their auto premium jumps, or their business policy suddenly costs more than a used Honda.
Then, very suddenly, the job matters.
This is not one of those races where I would tell people to vote based only on party. Insurance is too important for that.
Home insurance, auto insurance, workers’ comp, business insurance, wildfire exposure, carrier pullbacks, rate increases — this stuff hits people right in the wallet and sometimes right in the nervous system.
So when looking at the candidates, I think voters should ask a few basic questions:
Who understands the insurance system beyond campaign talking points?
Who has actual experience with consumers, small businesses, agents, carriers, claims, renewals, underwriting, and rate pressure?
Who is independent enough to ask hard questions of carriers, politicians, lobbyists, and consumer groups?
And yes — who has deep connections to the insurance industry, and are those connections an asset, a concern, or both?
Because connections are not automatically bad. In insurance, experience matters. But the Insurance Commissioner needs to be more than well-connected. That person needs to be independent, practical, consumer-minded, and honest about how broken parts of the California insurance market really are.
A friend whose opinion I respect made a strong case for Ben Allen. He described Allen as honest, intelligent, and focused on consumer protection and public service. He also pointed out that the Consumer Federation of California — which has real experience dealing with insurance rate issues — interviewed the top candidates and gave Ben Allen its sole endorsement.
That carries weight with me.
I also think Merritt Farren and Patrick Wolff deserve a look. Again, this is not a race where I would vote only by party label. I would look at experience, independence, judgement, and whether the candidate actually understands what regular people and small businesses are dealing with.
Now, my final take?
Write in John Lee for Insurance Commissioner. 😂
To be clear: that is a *** joke. Please do not start a campaign committee, print buttons, or ask me to kiss babies at a pancake breakfast.
But seriously, voters should look for a candidate with some “John Lee qualities”:
Someone who understands insurance from the ground level, not just from press releases and policy papers.
Someone who knows what homeowners, restaurant owners, contractors, small businesses, and working families actually deal with when premiums jump, policies get non-renewed, or carriers suddenly decide they no longer like California.
Someone who understands both sides of the table: consumers need protection, but carriers also need a system that allows them to stay in the market instead of running for the exits.
Someone who respects agents, because we are often the ones sitting across from clients when the bad news lands.
Someone who understands claims, renewals, underwriting, rate increases, carrier appetite, wildfire risk, workers’ comp, auto, home, business insurance, and all the boring little details that become very un-boring when they affect someone’s wallet or business.
Someone independent enough to ask hard questions of carriers, politicians, lobbyists, and consumer groups.
Someone practical enough to know that slogans do not fix broken insurance markets.
And someone human enough to remember that insurance is personal. Behind every policy is a home, a business, a family, a payroll, a dream, or a very stressed-out person holding a renewal notice and saying:
“Wait… why did my premium go up again?”
So no, I am not actually running.
But I do want an Insurance Commissioner who understands the difference between what sounds good in a campaign speech and what actually happens when insurance stops being theory and starts affecting real people.
