The California Insurance Commissioner race deserves more attention than it gets. The Commissioner’s office shapes how carriers operate in this state, how quickly rates get approved, and whether California’s insurance market stabilizes or continues to contract. For agents and industry professionals, the outcome matters.
LyteSpeed Learning and the American Agents Alliance are addressing that with a dedicated interview series — sitting down with each candidate running for California Insurance Commissioner to discuss their background, their priorities, and their vision for the market. Our first interview with Patrick Wolff is already available. This is the second.
Our second conversation is with Stacy Korsgaden — a longtime Farmers Insurance agent who is now running for Commissioner. Unlike candidates who come to regulatory positions from law or government, Korsgaden is coming from the field. She has spent her career as a working agent, which shapes both her diagnosis of what’s wrong with California’s insurance market and her priorities for fixing it.
Who Is Stacy Korsgaden
Korsgaden has spent decades on the front lines of the California insurance market — working directly with clients, navigating carrier relationships, and experiencing firsthand what the current regulatory environment has done to agents’ ability to actually serve people. Her candidacy is built around that experience.
In this interview, she discusses what she’s seen in the market, why she’s running, and what she would prioritize as Commissioner.
What the Interview Covers
The conversation covers the current state of California’s insurance crisis from an agent’s perspective — including the carrier exits that have left consumers scrambling, the growth of surplus lines as admitted carriers pull back, and the escalating wildfire risk that sits at the center of so many of these problems.
Korsgaden also goes into detail on the regulatory and structural issues that have contributed to the current situation. Topics include:
- Proposition 103 — Its original intent, how it has shaped the market over decades, and why it has become a central point of debate in every serious conversation about California’s insurance dysfunction.
- The Rise of Surplus Lines Insurance — What it means that more California consumers are being pushed into the surplus lines market, and whether that’s a temporary adjustment or a structural shift.
- The FAIR Plan — California’s insurer of last resort is carrying far more exposure than it was ever designed to handle. Korsgaden addresses what she sees as the path toward depopulating it and getting admitted carriers back into the market.
- Wildfire Mitigation and Risk Management — Her approach to coordinating wildfire mitigation strategies across state, local, and private sector levels, and how that coordination affects carrier willingness to write in high-risk areas.
- Fraud and Tort Reform — Two issues that don’t always surface in insurance commissioner races but that Korsgaden sees as meaningful factors in California’s cost and availability problems.
- Licensing and Consumer Education — Expanding access to licensing and improving the quality of consumer education so that agents are better positioned to serve a market that has become considerably more complicated.
She also outlines her specific priorities for the Commissioner’s office — including faster rate approval timelines, a new division focused on attracting admitted carriers back into California, and a coordinated approach to wildfire mitigation that goes beyond anything currently in place.
How to Watch or Listen
The full interview is available now. Watch the video, listen on Apple Podcasts, or tune in on Spotify — all free.
Watch: Vimeo Apple Podcasts: California Insurance Commissioner Candidate — Stacy Korsgaden Spotify: Listen Here
To learn more about her campaign, visit StacyforInsuranceCommissioner.com.
More interviews are on the way as the series continues. If you have questions you’d like us to bring to upcoming candidates, send them our way. This series is built for agents, brokers, and anyone who has a stake in what California’s insurance market looks like going forward — and there’s more coming.
