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CA Insurance Commissioner travels world as state burns — Official on hot seat as insurance options dwindle

CA Insurance Commissioner travels world as state burns — Official on hot seat as insurance options dwindle

Yahoo25-04-2025

San Francisco ABC affiliate 7 On Your Side and The San Francisco Standard report that California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has been having a good time on the taxpayers' dime — during an unprecedented insurance crisis.
The news outlets reveal that Commissioner Lara used campaign funding to pay for $30,000 in fancy meals and taxpayer dollars to travel to Paris, Bogota and beyond.
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The state has launched a probe in the wake of the news investigations.
Lara's spokesperson has responded to a request for comment by saying the Insurance Commissioner is 'laser focused on his job serving Californians as we face unprecedented times and bringing solutions to the insurance crisis.'
Here's a look at what the commissioner has been doing and what critics are saying about it.
According to ABC7, Commissioner Lara has gone on at least 46 cross-country and international trips with taxpayer funds. His office has not revealed the function of the trips.
He has spent $30,000 at some of the fanciest restaurants in California, dining on lobster salpicón, sea urchin, rack of lamb, and a $16 grapefruit.
The San Francisco Standard reports that the meals were listed as 'campaign meetings' and paid for with funds from a campaign committee he created during his run for lieutenant governor years ago. Even though his run was never publicly announced, he kept collecting campaign donations — coincidentally amounting to $30,000.
As Insurance Commissioner, Lara's job is to lead the Department of Insurance, which licenses insurance companies, establishes rate regulations, punishes insurance companies for rule violations and investigates consumer complaints.
Critics say he's not doing his job. Since 2019, he's missed eight of 14 of the state's insurance hearings. Dozens of insurers have left under his watch — 22 since 2021 according to the management consulting firm Milliman.
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While many insurers are fleeing California due to climate change risks, critics argue that Lara's actions have worsened the crisis.
For example, CNBC reports that some insurers have pulled out because California has set strict limits on rate increases.
Commissioner Lara blocked companies from raising premiums, despite huge losses, in part because of the potential impact of price increases on his re-election chances.
Now California insurers are being sued for allegedly colluding to limit coverage in high-risk areas. Critics suggest that Lara is too cozy with insurers — especially after he was caught collecting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations in 2019.
If critics are right that Lara's actions made things worse, Californians are the ones footing the bill.
'Lara is not serious. It was always a game to him,' political scientist David Letterman told the San Francisco Standard. 'And now insurers are leaving. People are being priced out; they can't get insurance. It's gone beyond like, 'Oh, he's just not up for the job.'
Many Californians have had to turn to the FAIR Plan.
FAIR has issued 555,000 home policies in California — double the number in 2020 — covering $458 billion in properties.
The FAIR Plan was established by statute to make sure everyone could get coverage. Essentially, it's a high-risk pool. All insurers licensed to sell property and casualty coverage in California come together to cover FAIR plan participants. The insurers share profits, losses, and expenses.
The problem is that FAIR Plans are costly and provide limited coverage to homeowners.
With so many homeowners stuck with few choices, it's no wonder people are mad at the commissioner for living his best life on taxpayer and campaign funds.
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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

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Walz, Hochul, Pritzker face off with Congress as Newsom battles Trump

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Opinion - Don't overlook the Big Labor funding behind the LA protests
Opinion - Don't overlook the Big Labor funding behind the LA protests

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Opinion - Don't overlook the Big Labor funding behind the LA protests

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Don't overlook the Big Labor funding behind the LA protests
Don't overlook the Big Labor funding behind the LA protests

The Hill

time3 hours ago

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Don't overlook the Big Labor funding behind the LA protests

The left in general and labor leaders in particular continue to misread the will of the people. Case in point: Among the dozens of lessons both seem incapable of learning from last November's electoral drubbing is that Americans are solidly in favor of enforcing the nation's sovereign borders and expelling as many as possible of the millions of lawbreakers who breached them thanks to the calculated apathy of the previous administration. Apparently unfazed by facts, however, David Huerta, president of the California chapter of Service Employees International Union, last Friday, traded on the full faith and credit of his position to join those violently protesting a legal raid at a Los Angeles worksite by officials from the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was subsequently arrested for trying to physically block a vehicle trying to enter the property. Again, Huerta made no attempt to distance himself and his actions from his role as SEIU's California director. To the contrary, he first made sure to don his purple SEIU T-shirt in order to make clear to everyone that he considers obstructing law enforcement one of his legitimate job responsibilities. Even more brazenly, his own SEIU affiliates in California have used member dues to support at least one group spearheading the protests — the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights — and to finance the informal 'immigration rapid response' network that has been equally at the center, and in which SEIU itself also participates. And rather than disavow Huerta's irresponsible, illegal behavior, state and national leftists quickly circled the wagons around Huerta. After all, SEIU California is a major funder of liberal causes and candidates in California. Syndicated columnist Kurt Schlicter, shrewdly noted this week that the scenario 'provides (the Trump administration) an opportunity to defund the government support to (non-governmental organizations) that launder government money to fund this kind of violence.' They could start with Huerta's union. SEIU California and its affiliates siphon millions of dollars a year from Medicaid by confiscating dues from thousands of Californians participating in a federal program that pays a modest subsidy in exchange for providing in-home care for an elderly or low-income client. Because they work at home, usually looking after a loved one, the union representing the caregivers — many of whom don't even realize they are union members — has relatively little to do. But that doesn't stop Huerta's organization from seizing 3 percent of their annual wages — among the highest dues rates in the country. In a very real sense, Medicaid is therefore bankrolling the protests in Los Angeles. Here's a thought: Instead of arresting Huerta and the other lawbreaking protestors, why not just cut off their source of funding by prohibiting unions from plundering Medicaid? Hundreds of thousands of government employees all over the country have exercised their First Amendment right to opt out of union membership and dues since it was affirmed in 2018 by the U.S. Supreme Court. One of the primary factors behind this movement is widespread anger over unions that use confiscated dues money to promote a radical political agenda instead of representing the legitimate workplace concerns of their members. SEIU-affiliated care providers in the Golden State need to ask themselves how Huerta's embarrassing spectacle helps enhance their pay, benefits and working conditions. It doesn't. It simply reinforces what's been obvious for years: The welfare of their rank and file hasn't been a priority for public employee unions in decades, assuming it ever was. Modern government-employee unions like SEIU exist almost exclusively to fund the failed policies of the left with workers' hard-earned dues dollars; workers who are increasingly fed up with it. It isn't just worksites overrun by violent agitators that are burning while labor icons like Huerta fiddle. It is also their fading hopes of ever being taken seriously or being handed political power again. Aaron Withe is CEO of the Freedom Foundation, a national nonprofit government union watchdog organization.

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