Everything journalists, editors, and media professionals need to cover Merritt Farren's campaign for California Insurance Commissioner. For media inquiries, contact Merritt@MerrittFarrenCA.com
Merritt Farren is a Pacific Palisades wildfire survivor and candidate for California Insurance Commissioner. A former Associate General Counsel at Amazon and General Counsel at Disneyland, Farren lost his home in the January 2025 Palisades Fire along with nearly all of his neighbors. He subsequently became the first wildfire survivor to intervene in a California insurance rate-setting case, winning key procedural victories against State Farm and the Department of Insurance. A Stanford and Berkeley Law graduate, Farren is running on a platform to revive the private insurance market and make the FAIR Plan obsolete.
Early Life & Education — Merritt David Farren has lived in California since the age of nine. He comes from a middle-class family — his father was a Navy pilot. He attended public schools, which he credits as terrific institutions filled with dedicated teachers and administrators. Farren earned his undergraduate degree with honors from Stanford University and his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
Career — Farren built a distinguished career at two of the world's most innovative and customer-centric companies. He served as Associate General Counsel at Amazon, one of the most senior legal roles in the company's corporate legal division. He then became General Counsel and Head of Legal, Guest Claims & Security at the Disneyland Resort, where he handled consumer-facing legal issues at scale. Following his corporate career, Farren founded Farren Law LLP, providing legal and corporate development services to emerging and established companies.
The Palisades Fire & State Farm Fight — On January 7, 2025, Farren and his family lost their home on Mount Holyoke Avenue in Pacific Palisades when the devastating Palisades Fire swept through their neighborhood. Nearly all of their neighbors lost their homes as well.
In the aftermath, Farren saw his community hit by a second blow: the massive challenge of dealing with insurance in a broken California system. After listening to neighbors' complaints about lowball reconstruction estimates, excessive documentation demands, and opaque claims processes, Farren determined to take action.
On June 4, 2025, he filed a formal 28-page petition with the Department of Insurance to intervene in State Farm's rate hike proceedings. Despite opposition from both State Farm and the Department of Insurance itself, Administrative Law Judge Karl-Fredric J. Seligman granted Farren full intervenor status on July 3, 2025. He is believed to be the first wildfire survivor ever to intervene at this level in a California rate-setting case.
Farren won a subsequent key ruling when the judge denied the Department's motion to separate claims-handling inquiries from the rate increase review. This meant that State Farm's treatment of fire survivors would be examined alongside its request for rate hikes — a significant precedent. His participation is supported by Consumer Watchdog, the nonprofit representing consumer interests in the proceedings.
If we had a state commissioner responsible for approving the price of automobiles, would we think it appropriate that the commissioner look only at the profitability of the companies making the cars, and not at the nature of the cars themselves and the after-sales warranties they include? No, of course not. Yet that's what the California insurance commissioner is doing here.
— Merritt Farren, from his 28-page petition to the Dept. of Insurance
Coverage of Farren's state-backed reinsurance proposal to replace the FAIR Plan and restore private market competition in California.
In-depth profile exploring Farren's journey from wildfire survivor to consumer intervenor in State Farm's rate hike proceedings.
Coverage of Farren's unprecedented decision to formally intervene in State Farm's rate increase proceedings after losing his home.
Profile of Farren's leadership in the fight for fair insurance treatment for Pacific Palisades fire survivors.
Breaking news coverage of ALJ Seligman's decision to grant Farren full intervenor status in the State Farm proceedings.
Local coverage of Farren's fight against State Farm on behalf of Pacific Palisades fire survivors and their insurance claims.
Farren participates in the Commonwealth Club's candidate forum for Insurance Commissioner, presenting his platform to a statewide audience.
Farren's central argument: the Department of Insurance is too lax regulating insurance companies' behavior, yet too strict controlling their market access — and consumers lose both ways. His platform focuses on five core reform pillars:
Incremental change will not solve California's insurance crisis. We need bold, structural reform on the scale of what Amazon and Disney have delivered — transforming home, auto, business, and health insurance. California's private sector is second to none, but our governmental sector has not kept up. Merritt will bring the same innovation mindset that launched Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Kindle to the Department of Insurance. Read more →
Replace the broken FAIR Plan with a state-backed reinsurance program — modeled on Florida's hurricane and the UK's flood programs — that removes the unpredictable assessment risk currently driving insurers out of California. Seven of the state's twelve largest insurers have pulled back since 2019. CAL Reinsure isolates community wildfire risk, entices private carriers back, and restores competition and consumer choice. Read more →
Simplify rules to eliminate delay-and-deny tactics and spark a California-grown insurance tech revolution. Companies that want to do right by consumers are driven away by complicated regulations, while bad actors exploit complexity to delay and deny. Merritt will champion simplified rules and new InsurTech options modeled on the fintech breakthroughs like Apple Pay and Zelle — creating jobs and lowering costs. Read more →
Champion home hardening, establish minimum community fire safety standards, and aggressively expose the underlying cost drivers — from infrastructure failures and fraudulent workers' comp claims to cozy deals between drug plans and pharmacy chains — that inflate premiums across home, auto, business, and health insurance. Prevention is cheaper than disaster response. Read more →
Bring the customer-centric standards of Disney and Amazon to California insurance. Pave the way for good operators to thrive by streamlining compliance and rewarding customer-centric practices, while holding delay-and-deny carriers accountable with unprecedented vigor through vigorous enforcement, transparency requirements, and meaningful consequences. Read more →
Merritt Farren is the only candidate for Insurance Commissioner who has lived through the crisis, fought the system from the inside, and has a concrete plan to fix it. He lost his home in the Palisades Fire, took on State Farm and the Department of Insurance as a consumer intervenor — and won. Now he's bringing his Amazon and Disney executive experience to modernize California's insurance system for every homeowner in the state.
Farren served as Associate General Counsel at Amazon and General Counsel at the Disneyland Resort. He's a Stanford graduate with honors and holds a law degree from UC Berkeley. He later founded Farren Law LLP. His career was built at two of the world's most innovative, customer-centric companies.
A state-backed reinsurance program to replace the FAIR Plan. The FAIR Plan creates a perverse incentive: companies that stay in California face unpredictable assessments when the FAIR Plan runs short. This effectively punishes them for writing policies in the state. A reinsurance program would remove that risk, entice private carriers back, and restore competition and consumer choice.
Farren believes the Department of Insurance is stuck in the past — relying on outdated systems and paper-driven processes that slow everything down for consumers and companies alike. Drawing on his executive experience at Amazon and Disney, he plans to modernize the Department with streamlined digital tools, faster claims processing systems, and simplified regulatory workflows. The goal is a Department that works like the best consumer technology: fast, transparent, and easy to navigate. Innovation isn't just about new software — it's about rethinking how the Department operates so it actually serves the people it was built for.
Most candidates focus on either tightening regulation or loosening it. Farren argues the Department needs to do both simultaneously: be tougher on insurer behavior (claims handling, transparency, accountability) while easing the structural barriers that drive companies out of the state. He's the only candidate who has been inside the regulatory process as an intervenor and seen how it actually works.
Insurance isn't a partisan issue. Every California homeowner — regardless of party — needs a functioning insurance market. Farren brings a cross-partisan, systems-reform approach. The top two vote-getters in the primary advance to the general election, and voters across the spectrum are frustrated with the current system. Steve Poizner, a Republican, previously served as Insurance Commissioner from 2007 to 2011.
Farren's background is in the private sector — and that's the point. The Department of Insurance needs someone who can bring operational excellence, technological innovation, and customer-centric thinking to a bureaucracy that oversees 1,600 companies. His regulatory experience comes from being inside the rate-setting process as an intervenor, where he's seen firsthand how the system works and where it fails.
This is actually a strength. Farren isn't pursuing a personal grievance. He intervened because he saw the system failing his neighbors and community members who didn't have the same experience. It shows his motivation is genuine systemic reform, not personal gain.
Merritt Farren is a Pacific Palisades wildfire survivor and candidate for California Insurance Commissioner. A former Associate General Counsel at Amazon and General Counsel at Disneyland, Farren became the first wildfire survivor to intervene in a California insurance rate-setting case after losing his home in the January 2025 Palisades Fire. His platform focuses on reviving the private insurance market through a state-backed reinsurance program, holding insurers accountable through claims performance transparency, and modernizing the Department of Insurance with private-sector innovation. A Stanford and Berkeley Law graduate, Farren is running as a Republican in the June 2, 2026 primary. Learn more at farrenforcommissioner.com.
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