Los Angeles Times investigative reporter Paige St. John has highlighted ongoing issues in California’s insurance market, brought to the forefront by recent wildfires in Los Angeles. These events have raised questions about the timing of reforms within the sector.
“The L.A. wildfires exposed a broken insurance market. Why wasn’t it fixed,” said St. John.
According to a report shared on X by St. John, California’s property-insurance market was already under strain before the Los Angeles-area wildfires. The investigation assessed Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara’s 2023 regulatory changes, noting that the FAIR Plan grew from 123,657 policies in 2019 to over 645,000. Furthermore, six of the first nine insurers seeking rate hikes under these new rules did not add any new policies in high-risk areas.
Following significant wildfires in January 2025 around Los Angeles, Commissioner Lara requested $1 billion from member insurers to support the state-backed FAIR Plan, as reported by Reuters. The Palisades and Eaton fires resulted in damage or destruction of more than 16,000 structures and claimed 29 lives. The FAIR Plan had paid out over $914 million to policyholders while handling thousands of related claims.
California’s Department of Insurance describes its “Sustainable Insurance Strategy” as an effort to modernize and stabilize availability and affordability amid increasing wildfire risks and global inflation pressures. The department reports that there were 8.4 million homes insured statewide as of March 2025, with FAIR Plan policy counts at 555,868. The strategy includes requiring insurers to write more policies in wildfire-distressed areas.
St. John is known for her coverage of criminal justice, disasters, and investigative reporting from Northern California for the Los Angeles Times. Her biography notes she won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 2011 and has previously covered state politics, hurricanes, and property insurance in Florida. The Los Angeles Times itself was first published on December 4, 1881.
