California insurance commissioner and climate change—a bibliography
Some of the academic and institutional research that went into the Businessweek article "The Race for the Worst Job in California Politics." If you have trouble surmounting a paywall on any of this, ping me and I'll see what I can do.
“2025 Annual Property & Casualty and Title Insurance Industries Analysis Report.” National Association of Insurance Commissioners, 2026. https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/2025-annual-property-and-casualty-and-title-insurance-industries-analysis-report.pdf.
Adarkar, Ashwin, Erwann Michel-Kerjen, Tolian Gjika, Lodovico Ferrario, Moises Coronado, and Zack Bruick. Forging a Resilient Future for California’s Homeowners and Insurers. McKinsey & Company, 2025. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/forging-a-resilient-future-for-californias-homeowners-and-insurers#/.
Ansell, Ben W. “The Politics of Housing.” Annual Review of Political Science 22, no. 1 (2019): 165–85.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050317-071146.
Assessing Methods to Integrate the Physical Risks and Transition Risks and Opportunities of Climate Change into the President’s Macroeconomic Forecast. Council of Economic Advisors and Office of Management and Budget, 2024.
Baranoff, Dalit. “Shaped by Risk: The American Fire Insurance Industry, 1790-1920.” Enterprise & Society 6, no. 4 (2005): 561–70. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23700645.
Barrett, Kimiko, David Calkin, Jack Cohen, Mark Finney, Stephen J. Pyne, and Stephen L. Quarles. Redefining the Urban Wildfire Problem in the West. Headwaters Economics, 2024. https://headwaterseconomics.org/natural-hazards/redefining-the-urban-wildfire-problem-in-the-west/.
Barrett, Kimiko, and Stephen L. Quarles. Retrofitting a Home for Wildfire Resistance. Headwaters Economics, 2024.
Baylis, Patrick, Judson Boomhower, Jonathan M. Colmer, and John L. Voorheis. “The Distribution and Consequences of Natural Disasters: Evidence from U.S. Wildfire Victims.” Working Paper. National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2026. http://www.nber.org/papers/w35675.
Baylis, Patrick, and Judson Boomhower. “Mandated Vs. Voluntary Adaptation to Natural Disasters: The Case of U.S. Wildfires.” Working Paper Series 29621. National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2021. http://www.nber.org/papers/w29621.
Beamish, Anne. “A Garden in the Street: The Introduction of Street Trees in Boston and New York.” Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 38, no. 1 (2018): 38–56.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14601176.2017.1281034.
Berg, Aleksander K., Dylan S. Connor, Peter Kedron, and Amy E. Frazier. “Remapping California’s Wildland Urban Interface: A Property-Level Time-Space Framework, 2000–2020.” Applied Geography 167 (June 2024): 103271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2024.103271.
Bilal, Adrien, and James H. Stock. Macroeconomics and Climate Change. Working Paper No. 33567. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2025. http://www.nber.org/papers/w33567.
Bobbette, Adam. “A Forensics of the Future: Fire Insurance Underwriting, Contingency, and Early 20th Century Materials.” Journal of Architectural Education 67, no. 2 (2013): 285–87.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10464883.2013.817177.
Boomhower, Judson, Meredith Fowlie, Jacob Gellman, and Andrew Plantinga. “How Are Insurance Markets Adapting to Climate Change? Risk Classification and Pricing in the Market for Homeowners Insurance.” No. W32625. Preprint, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2024.
https://doi.org/10.3386/w32625.
Born, Patricia, and W. Kip Viscusi. “The Catastrophic Effects of Natural Disasters on Insurance Markets.” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 33, nos. 1–2 (2006): 55–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11166-006-0171-z.
Chan, Alex. “Risk Design: AI and Prediction Beyond Screening in Insurance Markets.” Working Paper Series 35444. Preprint, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2026.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w35444.
Choi, June, Noah S. Diffenbaugh, and Marshall Burke. “The Effect of Flood Exposure on Insurance Adoption Among US Households.” Earth’s Future 12, no. 7 (2024): e2023EF004110. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EF004110.
Cignarale, Tony, Joel Laucher, Kenneth Allen, and Lisbeth Landsman-Smith. “The Availability and Affordability of Coverage for Wildfire Loss in Residential Property Insurance in the Wildland-Urban Interface and Other High-Risk Areas of California: CDI Summary and Proposed Solutions.” December 2017. https://uphelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/docs_legal-1053561-v1-cdi_white_paper_availability_affordability_120817.pdf.
Climate and Resiliency Task Force. Natural Catastrophe Risk Dashboard. National Association of Insurance Commissioners, 2026. https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/natural-catastrophe-risk-dashboard-report-final.pdf.
Collins, L., B. MacKinnon, A. Hartley-Nakao, and N. I. Maslowski. “The Effect of Characteristics of the Built Environment on Structure Losses During an Urban Conflagration.” Journal of Pyrogeography 3, no. 1 (2026): 100016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pyro.2026.100016.
Collins, Mei Mei. “California’s Wildfire Crisis: Risk Modeling and Individualization in Insurer Practices.” Block by Block - Berkeley Planning Journal, April 14, 2026.
https://berkeleyplanningjournal.com/blockbyblock/Blog Post Title One-3zaa9-zlxng-fas5f.
Condon, Madison. “Climate Services: The Business of Physical Risk.” SSRN Electronic Journal, ahead of print, 2023. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4396826.
Condon, Madison, Sarah Ladin, Jack Lienke, Michael Panfil, and Alexander Song. “Mandating Disclosure of Climate-Related Financial Risk.” NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Policy 23 (2020): 745–802. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=3931076.
Dlugolecki, Andrew. “Climate Change and the Insurance Sector.” The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice 33, no. 1 (2008): 71–90. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510152.
Farley, Scott, and David Winnacker. City Scale Wildfire Loss and Relative Fire Speed: A Framework for Meaningful Community-Scale Risk Reduction. Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, 2025.
Fiedler, Tanya, Andy J. Pitman, Kate Mackenzie, Nick Wood, Christian Jakob, and Sarah E. Perkins-Kirkpatrick. “Business Risk and the Emergence of Climate Analytics.” Nature Climate Change 11, no. 2 (2021): 87–94. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00984-6.
Frost, L. E., and E. L. Jones. “The Fire Gap and the Greater Durability of Nineteenth Century Cities.” Planning Perspectives 4, no. 3 (1989): 333–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/02665438908725687.
Giammanco, Ian M., Faraz Hedayati, Steve R. Hawks, Xareni Sanchez Monroy, and Evan Sluder. The Return of Conflagration in Our Built Environment. IBHS Wildfire Research Report. Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, 2023.
https://ibhs.org/wp-content/uploads/Suburban_Wildfire_Conflagration_WhitePaper.pdf.
Greenberg, Miriam, Hillary Angelo, Elena Losada, and Christopher C. Wilmers. “Relational Geographies of Urban Unsustainability: The Entanglement of California’s Housing Crisis with WUI Growth and Climate Change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121, no. 32 (2024): e2310080121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2310080121.
Guin, Jayanta, Suz Tolwinski-Ward, Charles Jackson, Boyko Dodov, and Roger Grenier. “Insights into Industrial Catastrophe Risk Climate Peril Modelling, and Cross-Sector Opportunities for Progress.” Journal of Catastrophe Risk and Resilience 02, no. 04 (2024). https://doi.org/10.63024/v1nc-swnf.
Hansen, J., D. Johnson, A. Lacis, et al. “Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.” Science 213, no. 4511 (1981): 957–66. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.213.4511.957.
Hilbig, Hanno, Liel Hen, and Miko Macaraeg. Navigating California’s Wildfire Insurance Challenge: Community Demographics and the FAIR Plan. Nos. 2025–1. California Policy Lab, University of California, 2025.
Inside Track x (Re)Insurance. “Sounding the Alarm.” October 14, 2026.
Insurance Journal. “The Downfall of California’s Insurance Commissioner.” July 9, 2000. https://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/mag-coverstory/2000/07/10/21521.htm.
Jones, Dave. “The Uninsurable Future: The Climate Threat to Property Insurance, and How to Stop It.” Yale Law Journal 135, no. 2 (2025): 181–236. https://yalelawjournal.org/essay/the-uninsurable-future-the-climate-threat-to-property-insurance-and-how-to-stop-it.
Kaurov, Alexander and Naomi Oreskes. “Lineages of Science in a Warming World: Who Owns Climate Knowledge?” Reckoning Science, February 12, 2026. https://reckoningscience.org/lineages-of-science-in-a-warming-world-who-owns-climate-knowledge/.
Kelly, Mary, Anne Kleffner, Lorilee Medders, and David Russell. “Trial by Fire: Reimagining Wildfire Insurance in California.” Journal of Insurance Regulation 44, no. 4 (2025).
https://doi.org/10.52227/27093.2025.
Keys, Benjamin J., and Philip Mulder. “Property Insurance and Disaster Risk: New Evidence from Mortgage Escrow Data.” Working Paper Series 32579. National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2025. http://www.nber.org/papers/w32579.
Kousky, Carolyn, and Howard Kunreuther. “Risk Management Roles of the Public and Private Sector.” Risk Management and Insurance Review 21, no. 1 (2018): 181–204. https://doi.org/10.1111/rmir.12096.
Kousky, Carolyn, and Lori Medders. The Evolution of Florida’s Public-Private Approach to Property Insurance. Florida Policy Project, 2024.
Kousky, Carolyn, and Xuesong You. Residential Property Insurance in California: A Tale of Two Markets. Insurance for Good, 2026. https://www.insuranceforgood.org/blog/tale-of-2-markets.
Lara, Ricardo. “Rebuilding With Wildfire Safety & Insurability.” March 2026.
LeMee, Gabrielle LaMarr. “How California Insurers Base Premiums on Your Home’s Wildfire Risk.” Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2024.
Linnerooth-Bayer, Joanne, R. Mechler, and G. Pflug. “Refocusing Disaster Aid.” Science 309, no. 5737 (2005): 1044–46. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1116783.
Lowman, Kainoa. “Can a Bernie-Backed Populist Fix California’s Home Insurance Crisis?” Washington Monthly, July 13, 2026. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/07/13/jane-kim-california-home-insurance-crisis/.
Lyons, Ronan C., Allison Shertzer, Rowena Gray, and David N. Agorastos. The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890-2006. Working Paper No. 32593. NBER Working Paper. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024. http://www.nber.org/papers/w32593.
Marcoux, Kendra, and Katherine R. H. Wagner. “Fifty Years of U.S. Natural Disaster Insurance Policy.” In Handbook of Insurance, third edition, vol. 1, edited by Georges Dionne. Springer Nature Switzerland, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69561-2_2.
Maynard, Trevor. “Climate Change: Impacts on Insurers and How They Can Help With Adaptation and Mitigation.” The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice 33, no. 1 (2008): 140–46.
https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510154.
Mills, Evan. “Insurance in a Climate of Change.” Science 309, no. 5737 (2005): 1040–44.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1112121.
Mohr, Kylie. “Will Betting on Wildfires Lead to Arson?” High Country News, June 29, 2026. https://www.hcn.org/articles/people-are-betting-on-wildfires-should-they/.
Moore, Fran. “Growing Costs of Natural Disasters Are Stressing Property Insurance Markets.” Briefing Book, July 29, 2024. https://www.briefingbook.info/p/growing-costs-of-natural-disasters.
Mulder, Philip. “Mismeasuring Risk: The Welfare Effects of Flood Risk Information.” Preprint, SSRN, March 23, 2024. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4966795.
Mumtaz, Haroon, and Roman Šustek. “Global House Prices Since 1950.” Preprint, October 30, 2023. https://www.lse.ac.uk/CFM/assets/pdf/CFM-Discussion-Papers-2023/CFMDP2023-07-Paper-2.pdf.
Munce, Megan Fan. “California’s Deadliest Wildfire Devastated This Town. An Insurer Wants to Return.” San Francisco Chronicle, December 23, 2024. https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/home-insurance-paradise-camp-fire-19937367.php.
Naik, Gautam, and Alastair Marsh. “Wildfires Fan Record Sales of Catastrophe Bonds to Backstop Risk.” Insurance Journal, August 3, 2026.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2026/08/03/880033.htm.
Nguyen, Nam, Eric Macomber, Michael Mastrandrea, and Michael Wara. The Evolution of the California Homeowners Insurance Market in the Face of Growing Wildfire Risk. Stanford Digital Repository, 2026. https://doi.org/10.25740/NW906RQ3789.
Odell, Kerry A., and Marc D. Weidenmier. “Real Shock, Monetary Aftershock: The San Francisco Earthquake and the Panic of 1907.” Preprint, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2002. http://www.nber.org/papers/w9176.
Oviatt, F.C. “Historical Study of Fire Insurance in the United States.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 26, no. 2 (1905): 155–78.
https://doi.org/10.1177/000271620502600212.
Pauch, Dariusz, Anna Bera, and Damian Walczak. “Insurance in Mitigating the Financial Consequences of Natural Disasters.” Economics and Environment 89, no. 2 (2024): 769.
https://doi.org/10.34659/eis.2024.89.2.769.
Pilot Climate Scenario Analysis Exercise: Summary of Participants’ Risk-Management Practices and Estimates. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2024.
Pollack, Adam, Jentry Campbell, Madison Condon, et al. “Peer-Reviewed Climate Change Research Has a Transparency Problem. the Scientific Community Needs to Do Better.” Preprint, 2024.
Raimonde, Olivia, Polly Mosendz, and Leslie Kaufman. “Florida’s Fix for Insurance Crisis Puts More Risk on Homeowners.” Bloomberg, July 29, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-07-29/florida-s-fix-for-property-insurance-crisis-puts-more-risk-on-homeowners.
Risk Modeling Advisory Workgroup. Draft Report. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), 2023. https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/-/media/osfm-website/committes/wildfire-mitigation-advisory-committee/approved-risk-modeling-report-draft-september-5-2023.pdf.
Rogers, Adam. “California’s Power Outages Are About Wildfires—But Also Money.” Wired, October 10, 2019. https://www.wired.com/story/californias-power-outages-are-about-wildfiresbut-also-money/.
______. “The Only Thing Fire Scientists Are Sure of: This Will Get Worse.” Wired, August 1, 2018. https://www.wired.com/story/the-only-thing-fire-scientists-are-sure-of-this-will-get-worse/.
______. “The West Is on Fire. Blame the Housing Crisis.” Wired, July 18, 2017.
https://www.wired.com/story/wildfire-housing-crisis/.
Röper, Nils, and Sebastian Kohl. “Bookkeepers of Catastrophes: The Overlooked Role of Reinsurers in Climate Change Debates.” Global Environmental Change 89 (December 2024): 102931. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102931.
Routley, J. Gordon. The East Bay Hills Fire. USFA-TR-060. US Fire Administration Technical Report Series. Federal Emergency Management Agency, 1991. https://www.caloes.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/Fire-Rescue/Documents/US-Fire-Admin-East-Bay-Hills-Fire-Report.pdf.
Roy, A.D. “Safety First and the Holding of Assets.” Econometrica 20, no. 3 (1952): 431–49.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1907413.
Schakenbach, Lindsay. “From Discontented Bostonians to Patriotic Industrialists: The Boston Associates and the Transcontinental Treaty, 1790–1825.” The New England Quarterly 84, no. 3 (2011): 377–401.https://doi.org/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00108.
Schubert, Jochen E., Katharine J. Mach, and Brett F. Sanders. “National‐Scale Flood Hazard Data Unfit for Urban Risk Management.” Earth’s Future 12, no. 7 (2024): e2024EF004549.
https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004549.
Sumagaysay, Levi. “Insurance Commissioner Candidates Float Bigger California Role.” CalMatters, May 16, 2026. https://calmatters.org/economy/2026/05/california-insurance-candidates-public-options/.
Syphard, Alexandra D., Heather Rustigian-Romsos, Michael Mann, Erin Conlisk, Max A. Moritz, and David Ackerly. “The Relative Influence of Climate and Housing Development on Current and Projected Future Fire Patterns and Structure Loss Across Three California Landscapes.” Global Environmental Change 56, no. March (2019): 41–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.03.007.
Teixeira, Lauren. Rewiring Risk. Breakthrough Institute, 2026.
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/rewiring-risk.
Wagner, Katherine R. H. “Designing Insurance for Climate Change.” Nature Climate Change 12, no. 12 (2022): 1070–72. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01514-2.
Woody, Todd. “Californians Are Subsidizing Mansion Wildfire Insurance as FAIR Risk Explodes.” Business. Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2026. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-07-22/californians-are-subsidizing-mansion-wildfire-insurance-as-fair-risk-explodes.
Wyman, Katrina, and Danielle Spiegel-Feld. “The Urban Environmental Renaissance.” California Law Review 108, no. 19 (2020). https://ssrn.com/abstract=3360548.
Zamanialaei, Maryam, Daniel San Martin, Maria Theodori, et al. “Fire Risk to Structures in California’s Wildland-Urban Interface.” Nature Communications 16, no. 1 (2025): 8041.