The California insurance commissioner race is facing a concrete test: six survivor organizations and former Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent Austin Beutner have asked both candidates to commit to insurer-funded contamination testing of all properties contaminated by the January 2025 wildfires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades. The letter seeks a response from Ben Allen and Jane Kim by Monday, October 26.
The request, reported by MyNewsLA.com, was joined by the Palisades Standing Homes Advisory Task Force, LA Standing Homes Network, Eaton Fire Residents United, Every Fire Survivor Network, Palisades Standing Homes and Surviving Structures Eaton Fire. The letter calls for testing of homes, including attics, wall cavities, ducting and HVAC units, for toxic heavy metals such as lead, lithium and arsenic, according to the report. It also alleges insurers engaged in unlawful business practices, including inadequate evaluations, shifting blame and denying valid claims.
The wildfires that hit Altadena and Pacific Palisades on January 7, 2025 destroyed more than 16,000 structures and killed 31 people, leaving tens of thousands without homes or jobs, per the same account. Thousands of additional structures were badly damaged by toxic heavy metals left behind, and the California Department of Insurance has reported that more than 13,000 insurance claims for smoke contamination have been filed.
Beutner's Own Fight With Chubb Looms Over the Letter
Beutner's own home became a flashpoint in the broader contamination fight this month. He and his wife, Virginia, sued their insurer Chubb, its subsidiary Bankers Standard Insurance Company, and two environmental consulting firms, according to The New York Times. The suit accuses Chubb of breach of contract and professional negligence for refusing to pay for a full cleanup of lead and other toxins in the Pacific Palisades home.
Testing commissioned by the Beutner family found high lead levels in the Pacific Palisades home, The New York Times reported. Beutner separately told NBC Los Angeles that testing found levels of about 9,500 micrograms per square foot, far above the roughly 10-microgram level California deems safe. Investigators concluded the contamination was fire-caused and that the home was unsafe for occupancy, requiring it to be stripped to the studs and rebuilt, according to the seed reporting. The lawsuit further alleges that testing firms Apex, AAA and AIS found extraordinarily high levels of CAM 17 heavy metals and lithium throughout the property.
In an interview, Beutner said smoke contamination has not received the attention it deserves and argued that insurers bear responsibility for finding and repairing damage when it exists. He said insurers' arguments that contamination is not severe, invisible or simply not payable are insufficient, and warned that political will is needed to prevent cancer clusters and other health effects from toxic metals in Altadena and Pacific Palisades.
Insurers Face Mounting Legal and Regulatory Pressure
The contamination dispute is unfolding against a backdrop of expanding investigations into how major insurers handled fire claims. Los Angeles County opened a civil investigation into the California FAIR Plan's handling of January 2025 wildfire claims, examining whether the insurer of last resort violated consumer protection laws, according to the Los Angeles Times. The probe covers smoke-damage claims, delays in responding to claims, adjuster changes and living-expense payments. The FAIR Plan, a private association made up of all insurers licensed to write property coverage in California and funded primarily through the policies it sells, said it had received roughly 5,400 claims from the Eaton and Palisades fires and paid nearly $3.5 billion to policyholders; the insurer has said it evaluates claims individually and pays covered losses, including smoke damage, up to policy limits in compliance with the law.
Los Angeles County also filed suit against State Farm General in August, alleging the insurer delayed, denied or underpaid claims from the two fires. County investigators say State Farm systematically underpaid and suppressed smoke-damage claims, the Times reported. State Farm has said it paid more than $6.2 billion on claims tied to the two wildfires, including about $1 billion for smoke-related damage, and has said separately that it deployed a catastrophe response team and processed 13,700 claims to assist fire survivors.
County counsel has opened a parallel investigation into Farmers Insurance Company's handling of claims from customers affected by the two fires, according to CBS News Los Angeles. Affected customers complained of delays, refusals to pay for testing and remediation of lead and other contamination, underpayments, and denials of legitimate claims. Farmers disputed the county's characterization, saying it operates in accordance with state law and that each claim is reviewed individually based on the specific circumstances of the loss and the coverage provided under the policy.
Two Candidates, Two Very Different Fixes
The letter lands in the middle of a closely watched race for insurance commissioner between Ben Allen, a California state senator representing Santa Monica, and Jane Kim, a former San Francisco supervisor, attorney and longtime consumer advocate. Allen has said he is running to make insurance more accessible and affordable while cracking down on the industry, according to LAist. He has authored legislation giving the insurance department more enforcement power and establishing a loan program for wildfire resilience, and he would require insurers to provide real-time reports on disaster-related delays and outstanding claims and to explain claim denials. He would also increase oversight of the FAIR Plan and make it more accountable to the insurance department.
Kim has said she would create a single-payer universal disaster insurance program — a state-run authority funded by premiums paid to insurance companies that would guarantee coverage for wildfires and floods, per the same account. She would also seek to freeze insurance rates when a policyholder files a claim and penalize insurers for delaying claims, though her proposed program has been criticized as farfetched and difficult to establish. KQED's Forum program framed the contrast starkly: Kim is pushing to fundamentally remake insurance in California, while Allen favors working within the existing system. Both candidates have nonetheless promised to push for insurer transparency and create public report cards for insurers, according to KPBS.
What the state can require
California has recently established a specific requirement on testing costs: according to the California Department of Insurance, AB 1795, signed September 15, 2026, requires insurers to pay for necessary testing and sampling of smoke-damaged homes. Public cleanup and insurance-funded testing are separate efforts. During the 2018 Camp Fire response in Paradise and Butte County, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control assessed and removed household hazardous waste from burned properties; that work was distinct from testing standing homes or resolving insurance claims. Separately, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health representative soil sampling found a higher percentage of samples above health-based lead screening thresholds on parcels with intact homes downwind of the Eaton Fire. That finding concerns soil samples, not testing inside every home, according to the county’s sampling results.
The backdrop for both campaigns is a property insurance market under visible strain. Almost half a million Californians had policies canceled or not renewed between 2021 and early 2025, as Farmers, Allstate and State Farm either halted new business or significantly scaled back in the state, according to KQED. The FAIR Plan raised its rates by 29 percent this month even as fewer people entered the plan each quarter, and statewide homeowners insurance rates rose 5 percent in the first half of 2026, per Insurify data cited by KPBS. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in June 2025 that California law requires coverage for all fire loss and that direct physical loss includes microscopic contamination, according to the letter cited in the seed report — a decision survivor groups are now pointing to as they press both candidates for firm commitments before the clock runs out Monday.
