WASHINGTON, DC – California homeowners face some of the steepest insurance premium increases in the country alongside worsening wildfire and flood risk, yet Rep. David Valadao (CA-22) and Rep. Darrell Issa (CA-48) have taken no action to hold insurers accountable. Instead, they’ve both voted to gut the disaster preparedness funding their own constituents depend on. Wildfires in the Alameda County area recently forced 1,000s of homeowners to evacuate.
“California families are being squeezed from every direction: skyrocketing premiums, denied claims, and growing climate change-driven risks that put more homes and property in harm’s way every year,” said Jayson O’Neill, spokesperson for Unlocking America’s Future. “Home insurance corporations have failed their policyholders, yet Republican Representatives David Valadao and Darrell Issa have done nothing to hold the industry accountable, even as their own constituents lose coverage and face unjustified claim denials as the Trump administration withholds disaster mitigation funding from California. Homeowners deserve leaders who will stand with and fight for them to hold home insurers accountable, not ones who acquiesce to vindictive political acts that hurt their own constituents by this administration.”
The Trump administration has starved California’s disaster preparedness. Of the $1.1 billion in FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant funds distributed nationwide this year, California has received just $830,000, compared to $239 million for Florida and $131 million for Texas, part of $1.68 billion withheld from California and Colorado. The administration also denied California’s appeal for aid following the 2024 wildfires.
Valadao’s Central Valley district includes Tulare County, ranked in the 98th percentile nationally for both flood and wildfire risk, where the reemergence of Tulare Lake has repeatedly swallowed farmland. Rather than push insurers to cover his constituents, Valadao voted for the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which cut $200 million from NOAA’s weather forecasting and public alert programs that warn Central Valley communities of flash flooding, while accepting campaign contributions tied to PG&E, a utility whose equipment has been linked to wildfires driving up his constituents’ premiums.
Issa, who represents San Diego County, has taken at least $6,000 from the American Property Casualty Insurance Association’s PAC, the property insurance industry’s largest trade group, then voted for the same damaging legislation as Rep. Valadao, slashing the forecasting and disaster funding his constituents rely on ahead of wildfire season. Both Republican Representatives largely failed to stand up and stop Trump’s vindictive and politically motivated attacks harming their constituents other than signing onto a full delegation letter led by California congressional Democrats.
Despite the harm caused to Californians by this administration, even President Trump has acknowledged home insurers’ failures. In April, Trump wrote on Truth Social that State Farm and other insurers had been “absolutely horrible” to policyholders abandoned after last year’s Los Angeles wildfires. No legislative follow-through came from that admission, and California homeowners are still waiting on accountability.
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