Articles by R.J. Lehmann

Live by Prop 103, Die by Prop 103

Wildfire has hit Assemblymember Damon Connolly’s (D-San Rafael) Northern California district particularly hard in recent years, including the devastating Glass and LNU Lightning Complex fires in 2020, the Nuns and Tubbs fires in 2017, and the Valley fire in 2015. …

Illinois Considers Slaughtering the Golden Goose of Competition

How it is that Illinois, a jurisdiction not typically associated with a strong commitment to free-market principles, came to be the first state in the nation to allow its insurance rates to be regulated entirely by open competition is something …

Has Sarbanes-Oxley Made Insurance Riskier?

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX)—named for its chief sponsors, former Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D–Md.) and former Rep. Mike Oxley (R–Ohio)—was intended to restore trust in the transparency of publicly traded companies after the collapses of WorldCom and Enron Corp. …

How Do You Solve a Problem Like California?

California has a wildfire crisis. Arguably, the entire Western United States has a wildfire crisis, but California’s crisis is of an entirely different magnitude. California also has a homeowners insurance crisis. That crisis began in 2019, when nonrenewals of residential …

Could the Ukraine Crisis Move Florida to Fix Its Insurance Crisis?

With the March 11 scheduled close of its regular session fast approaching, the Florida Legislature remains so focused on putting the finishing touches on its various culture-war signaling bills that one might think Tallahassee hasn’t noticed that the state’s property …