California official's insane spending spree with insurance execs at the state's fanciest restaurants while LA burned

Daily Mail​

02-05-2025

California 's insurance commissioner was wined and dined by an insurance boss at one of Los Angeles ' fanciest restaurants as the city burned beneath them.
Entire communities spent weeks on edge in January, evacuated from their homes and hunkering down in shelters or with loved ones, unsure if their homes had been razed during unrelenting wildfires which killed 30 and destroyed unimaginable swathes of land.
The perverse reality was that the 'lucky ones' were those wracked with fear about whether their insurers would ever pay out for any damage they faced.
Others were part of the unfortunate cluster whose insurance premiums had spiked to such extortionate levels that they'd had to cancel their policies, or had simply been told one day by their provider that they were no longer covered.
Meanwhile the man tasked with holding insurance firms to account, Ricardo Lara, was feasting on sea urchin, lobster salpicón, a rack of lamb and two bottles of Leirana Albariño with Raul Vargas, CEO of the Farmers Insurance Group.
On January 15, the pair had a table at San Laurel, the brainchild of famed chef José Andrés which boasts glittering and sprawling views of Los Angeles.
That same day, first responders were combing through the devastation of the Palisades fire searching for the charred remains of residents in the wreckage, while firefighters were still battling to get the Eaton fire under control.
An investigation by the San Francisco Standard accuses Lara of blowing $30,000 of money allocated to his campaign on fancy restaurants and wining and dining.
During the January 15 dinner, the total bill came to $697, including tip.
On that occasion, Lara paid $234 of the bill, charging it to a campaign committee balance created two years prior to fund a run for lieutenant governor which never materialized.
The rest of the tab was picked up by Vargas, whose company is California's second largest home insurer.
Throughout his term, Lara has been repeatedly accused of cozying up to the insurance industry which he is mandated to police.
As part of his elected role, Lara sets rates in California and is responsible for ensuring a healthy and competitive insurance market.
California is gripped by an insurance crisis as insurers increasingly turn their backs on areas they now deem high risk for wildfires and natural disasters.
From 2020 to 2022, insurance companies chose not to renew 2.8million policies f or homeowners across the state. This included 531,000 in Los Angeles County, which was decimated by the wildfires.
Just months after he took office in 2019, he was forced to issue an apology after it emerged he had taken tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from parties with interests in the insurance sphere.
He said he was 'deeply sorry' for his actions and vowed to no longer engage with the industry for support.
In addition to his latest dinner, last year Lara charged two meal bills at swanky Italian restaurant Piatti to his campaign fund.
One of the checks, from April 17 2024, was for more than $1,000. He described the dinner as a 'campaign strategy meeting' with eight diners.
Between them, they ordered seven cocktails, eight glasses of wine, a bottle of Honis sauvignon blanc and almost half the food items on the dinner menu, including steaks, meatballs, olives and various desserts.
And in 2023, he held four separate meetings at Baar Baar, a ritzy Indian restaurant in Los Angeles.
On one of these visits, he and unnamed guests dined over a bottle of Cobb riesling, two more glasses of wine, lamb keema hyderabadi, shrimp ghee roast, and beef short ribs.
Meanwhile on another, he and a guest ordered three Slumdog Millionaire cocktails, along with other drinks.
Consumer Watchdog advocacy group executive director Carmen Balber told the publication Lara's dinner with Vargas was 'disappointing' given his earlier apology.
'It sounds like he's mixing regulation and politics once more. Maybe ''shocker'' is the wrong word, but it's disappointing. And if this wasn't a campaign meeting, then what is this campaign committee? Nothing more than a slush fund.'
Beyond the fancy restaurants, Lara is also facing intense criticism for his travel schedule and for policies which are set to benefit insurers and drive up premiums by up to 50 percent.
The first Senate committee hearing on insurance in the wake of the fires was held on March 12, 2025. Lara did not attend, according to an investigation conducted by ABC.
Instead, he traveled to Bermuda to attend a conference where he delivered a 15-minute speech.
The Senate Insurance Committee holds between two and three crucial hearings a year, and the report determined that in his six year term so far, Lara has missed several to travel interstate or internationally.
A spokesperson for his office countered the criticism, insisting: 'Commissioner Lara's job is to ensure that California consumers have real choices - not just last resorts.
'This involves going over the heads of insurance companies and engaging directly with the global reinsurance groups that support them. Nearly 40% of the world's reinsurance companies are based in Bermuda, paying out trillions of dollars in claims - including those for wildfires.'
'He is working to retain insurance companies in the market and attract those that have left.'