Good morning! We're back in your inbox earlier than planned because California has its next insurance commissioner, which may not sound that exciting but trust me, it's a vital role in wildfire recovery. Let's get crackin'.

 🥑 INSURANCE COMMISSIONER

Jane Kim’s progressive ‘affordable insurance for all’ message wins over voters

• What happened: Jane Kim, a Bernie Sanders-backed Democrat and attorney, has won the race for California insurance commissioner over Democratic state Sen. Ben Allen. She declared victory Friday, pledging accountability for the property insurance industry that has angered consumers over rising premiums and denied or delayed payouts for claims.
• What the candidates said:
  • Jane Kim: “Insurance was created as a shared promise. We pay into the system so that when the worst happens, we’re protected. Californians have kept our end of that bargain, but insurance companies have broken their side of the promise by denying, delaying and underpaying valid claims and dropping coverage. Voters made clear in this election that they want – and deserve – that promise restored. That’s what I will do as Insurance Commissioner,” she said in a statement.
  • Ben Allen: According to our partners at CalMatters, Allen called Kim and congratulated her yesterday. He said in a text message that he wishes Kim the best.
• Background: The job of an insurance commissioner is to lead the Department of Insurance. They regulate most of California’s insurance market, including a lot of what you might expect (auto, home) and some you might not (pet, rideshare, life insurance and workers’ compensation). A former commissioner once called it the “second-hardest job in the state behind the governor.” Kim is the first woman and Asian American to be elected to the job.
• What’s at stake: Kim’s election comes at a time when resentment has been growing against insurance companies since the 2025 fires over prolonged delays or refusal to pay out claims on remediation for damaged homes. At the same time, California risks seeing more insurance carriers leave the state if the market isn’t stable, which could drive premiums higher and add to the affordability crunch.
• Her vision for the role: Most recently a director of the California Working Families Party, Kim called her race “the first unabashed and unapologetic populist progressive campaign.” She wants to create public wildfire and auto insurance programs, require home insurers to cover the full rebuild costs for total losses and reform the state’s unpopular insurer of last resort,  the FAIR Plan. While the insurance commissioner does not have full regulatory control over the health insurance industry, Kim also wants to write a ‘Medicare for Kids’ plan in hopes of guaranteeing coverage when families are removed from Medi-Cal.
• What’s next: Kim will have to balance the needs of insurers and the public in policy to find a path to lower premiums and coverage availability in a state where insurers have canceled homeowner policies or refused to write new ones. She takes office in January.

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On another note, we can finally lay that federal legal battle over 20,000 ballots in California to rest. The Justice Department has dropped its case that alleged some of the voters were noncitizens. Why? They say it’s no longer possible to get what they wanted — separating those ballots — now that we’re well into counting.

The next local ballot counts drop tonight starting around 4 p.m. Unless there’s another major race call this weekend, we’ll be back Monday, focusing on understanding what these results mean for your life in Southern California.

— Cato and Makenna

📰 Catch up quick

You can get caught up on our past issues here:

• Nov. 6: The L.A. city attorney race comes to a close
• Nov. 5: Nithya Raman wins the L.A. mayor’s race
• Nov. 5: All 8 L.A. city measures could pass
• Nov. 4: We’ve got a new governor, plus voter ID fails

Otherwise, you can keep up with the results here:

• L.A. County
• Orange County