California's insurance regulatory framework was built for a different era. Decades of incremental rule-making have produced a system that is slow, opaque, and hostile to competition. The answer is not another round of small adjustments to a fundamentally broken structure.

Merritt has been part of teams that launched entirely new categories at scale — Kindle, Prime Video, Amazon Studios, Audible. He knows what it takes to reinvent an industry from the ground up. That experience is what he will bring to the Department of Insurance.

The tech-centric reforms Merritt will implement recognize a fundamental truth: our rules need to work for both consumers and insurers. Insurance in California isn't working for either right now. With Merritt's leadership, it will work for both — and that insurance tech revolution will be built right here in California, bringing jobs and new business prosperity.

The core problem driving California's insurance crisis is that concentrated community fire risk has made it economically impossible for insurers to write home and property policies in large parts of the state. When an entire neighborhood burns, every policyholder files at once. No private insurer can absorb that — so they leave.

CAL Reinsure — developed with insurance industry input — moves that community-scale fire risk onto a reinsurance authority organized by the State. Insurers can then write policies statewide without fearing catastrophic community fire losses. Modeled on Florida's hurricane reinsurance program and the UK's Flood Re program, it has been proven to work.

CAL Reinsure also includes a non-negotiable requirement: full payment of the insured amount within 30 days of a total structural loss. Families cannot rebuild their lives while insurance companies delay. Neither can entire communities. The 30-day guarantee changes that — for individual homeowners and for the neighborhoods they need to rebuild together.

Structural reforms and CAL Reinsure address the market collapse — but insurance will only become truly affordable when we attack the costs that drive prices up in the first place. Merritt will introduce a new Department of Insurance agenda focused on exactly that.

On community safety: Merritt will establish minimum fire protection standards that cities and counties need to meet to help ensure Californians are safe. Communities that invest in hardening and preparation will be recognized and rewarded in the insurance market. Those that don't will be held accountable.

On root costs: Merritt will work insurance line by insurance line — home, auto, business, and health — to expose and attack the underlying cost drivers inflating premiums. From infrastructure failures to fraud to lack of price transparency, the Department of Insurance under Merritt's leadership will shine a light on what is actually driving costs and pursue real solutions with unprecedented vigor.