Opinion: State's FAIR plan meant to cover riot-prone areas,' not climate disasters

"The proximate spark for the Watts rebellion, which began on Aug. 11, 1965, was the violent arrest of a Black motorist. But the kindling for the six days of unrest had been laid by decades of racist policing and discrimination in housing, employment and education. As Watts burned, insurance men beat the National Guard to the scene by a full day."

"An insurance-related offshoot of the commission saw the Watts pool as an important prototype for what became the FAIR plan, a government-organized pool of all property insurers operating in a given state. Established on a state-by-state basis beginning in 1968, the FAIR plan was Washington's answer to the deepening crisis of insurance redlining. By increasing access to property insurance in riot-prone areas, federal policymakers hoped the FAIR plan would"

The California FAIR plan originated as a government-organized insurance pool created after the Watts uprising to address insurance redlining. Following the 1965 unrest insurers sharply reduced coverage in neighborhoods of color, leaving property owners uninsured or paying much higher premiums. The FAIR plan pooled all property insurers to increase access in riot-prone areas and stem discriminatory market practices. Early implementation allowed systemic injustices to persist and impeded broader reform. Today, climate-driven wildfire risk presents a new insurance crisis that risks repeating past errors if policymakers continue to rely primarily on insurance-based fixes rather than transformative social and policy changes.

Read at www.mercurynews.com