The Commissioner of the Department of Insurance, or insurance ombudsman, is an important institution in California. This state is twinned with the Province of Santa Fe through the Agreement of which the FNGA has been a promoter and signatory. For the appointment of the Commissioner of said Department – whose function is the regulation of the insurance market in the state – general elections are held in the same way as they are carried out for high positions, such as governor. The last elections to define the new Commissioner took place on November 8, having led to the re-election, with a wide margin of votes, of the democrat and environmentalist Ricardo Lara, who held the position above since 2019 and will remain in the same position until 2027 thanks to said re-election.
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The relevance of this victory lies in the fact that Lara is characterized by its commitment to providing the world of insurance with an approach based on sustainability. Insurance companies, as important financial actors that wield enormous power, can play an important role in managing environmental problems and mitigating the effects of climate change by committing to carry out their work from a sustainable perspective. Allocating funds in bonds to subsidize environmentally-related insurance or to finance green projects, generators of green production and jobs are some modalities of action that these actors can adopt.
During his 4 years in the Department of Insurance, as well as in his previous political career – in which he was an Assemblyman and Senator of the State of California and held decisive positions, such as the presidency of the Senate Budget Committee -, Lara has taken measures aimed at making the insurance market “the solution and not the problem”, attentive to the environmental problems facing the State of California, such as recurrent forest fires, floods, heat waves and the increase in the sea level. In this sense, the creation of the Climate and Sustainability branch within the Department of Insurance and the launch of the California Climate Insurance Working Group -framed within the said branch-, as well as the drafting of the first Climate Insurance Law, stand out of the Nation and the Forest Fire Disaster Law. Faced with the particular problem of fires common in the region, Lara has been characterized by its actions aimed at achieving greater flexibility in access to insurance for victims of fires, as well as being responsible for protecting the insured from non-insurance. Renewal of insurance after the series of strong forest fires that developed in 2020.