Jamestown, CA — Jane Kim, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, is running for California Insurance Commissioner.
She toured parts of Tuolumne County on Monday and met with some local leaders to learn more about the region’s growing insurance challenges.
The day included a tour of the Chinese Camp burn scar impacted by the TCU September Lightning Complex Fire, a visit to the Heartwood Biomass facility on O’Byrnes Ferry Road, and a stop at a private property off Jamestown Road where ongoing fuel reduction work is underway. Related to the latter, organizers of the tour say that it offered a closer look at the realities facing homeowners. Local contractors and other partners outlined the costs and logistical challenges of mitigating fire risk, and emphasized the gap between available public funding and the burden placed on individual property owners.
Later in Twain Harte, Kim attended a small business roundtable with members of the Twain Harte Chamber of Commerce, and then hosted a town hall meeting at the Twain Harte Community Center attended by around 30 people. Those on hand shared personal stories about challenges faced in navigating the insurance market.
Kim, a Democrat, is one of eight candidates running to replace term-limited incumbent Ricardo Lara. The top two vote-getters in the June Primary will move on to the November General Election.
She states among her campaign priorities, “We need to make insurance affordable and available to all, or millions of people will be shut out of our economy. But the current insurance system is failing us. We see it in rising premiums and canceled coverage, and we feel it when insurance companies fight our claims.”
