Governance Meets Insurance: Das Williams on Building Resilient Communities

Published Date: 03/19/2024

Governance Meets Insurance: Building Resilient Communities in an Era of Climate Risk

California’s insurance landscape isn’t just shaped by carriers and regulators — it’s also influenced by local governments making decisions about fire prevention, flood control, and community readiness. In a recent episode of The Insurance Hour, host Karl Susman sat down with Das Williams, Santa Barbara County Supervisor and former state legislator, to discuss how governance and insurance intersect in the age of climate change.

Their conversation offered an unusually detailed and practical perspective on what’s being done — and what still needs to happen — to make California communities safer, more insurable, and financially sustainable in the face of escalating climate threats.

1. A County at the Frontlines of Climate Change

Santa Barbara County, famous for its coastal beauty, now finds itself on the frontlines of climate-driven challenges. As Williams explained, the county has become one of the two fastest-warming regions on the western seaboard. That warming has brought more intense sundowner winds, which feed wildfires, and in turn, cause flooding and debris flow after the flames die down.

“Our basic task,” Williams said, “is how do we get better at response and how do we get better infrastructure for flood control? Because we still have many creeks that do not have 100-year flood capacity.”

To address that, Santa Barbara has invested in new debris basins and improved drainage systems — projects that rarely make headlines but directly influence insurance outcomes. As Susman pointed out, “These types of infrastructure upgrades almost fly under the radar. But they have a dramatic impact on property values and what’s going to happen going forward as the insurance industry starts to price risk more accurately.”

Infrastructure, in short, is becoming part of the insurance conversation. Communities that invest in resilience will see those efforts reflected in lower risk scores, better underwriting, and potentially lower premiums under California’s evolving “Sustainable Insurance Strategy.”

2. The Policy Shift: From Regulation to Resilience

For decades, California’s insurance market has operated under Proposition 103, which limits how insurers can price risk. Rates are largely based on historical losses, not forward-looking modeling. That’s led to growing tension between insurers seeking modernization and regulators trying to preserve consumer protections.

Williams acknowledged that tension head-on. He described how California’s Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and Governor Gavin Newsom recently negotiated a compromise that could reshape the market — giving insurers more flexibility in exchange for expanded coverage availability in high-risk areas.

“Essentially, the state government will approve rate increases,” Williams said, “and the insurance industry will cover more areas in the difficult country.”

Susman added that the Sustainable Insurance Strategy will finally allow carriers to reward mitigation efforts — such as home hardening and defensible space — with rate discounts. For homeowners, that means insurance will become less about geography and more about individual action.

“One house is different from the next,” Susman noted. “And as people become more proactive about protecting their homes, they’ll be able to have lower premiums.”

This shift represents a major cultural and economic pivot: risk will no longer be an abstract regulatory formula but a measurable outcome of local resilience.

3. “Safer from Wildfires” — Turning Mitigation into Savings

A key part of California’s insurance reform is the Safer from Wildfires initiative — a joint effort by the Department of Insurance, CAL FIRE, and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

Williams highlighted how Santa Barbara County has embraced the program through its partnership with the Fire Safe Council, offering residents free technical assistance to make their properties safer from wildfire.

“People from the Fire Safe Council will come out and help you brainstorm what’s going right on your property and what’s not — free of charge,” Williams said.

This proactive approach flips the insurance equation. Instead of waiting for disaster to strike, homeowners can now take quantifiable steps to reduce risk, directly influencing their eligibility and cost of coverage.

Susman called the idea “mind-blowing” — the chance to prevent losses before they happen, which benefits both insurers and policyholders.

“The best claim is no claim,” he said. “If you can have someone that’s an expert in helping you prevent a loss come out, that’s money in your pocket and stability for the market.”

For those in high-risk zones, programs like these can mean the difference between being dropped by a private insurer and keeping affordable, sustainable coverage.

4. The Economics of Flood Control

While wildfire dominates the conversation, Williams reminded listeners that flood control is now an equally pressing issue.

In the past two years alone, storms in Santa Barbara County caused tens of millions of dollars in damage — $77 million from one event alone, with federal reimbursements still pending. Yet the local flood control district collects only about $2.5 million per year through property tax assessments.

“It’s an unsustainable assessment,” Williams admitted. “We can’t keep spending 10 or 20 years’ worth of the account every year or every other year.”

The math is stark: the cost of recovery is now outpacing the capacity to fund prevention. Without new revenue models or partnerships, local governments risk being perpetually underfunded — and residents risk losing both protection and insurability.

Susman likened the situation to the insurance industry’s own challenge: “You can’t spend what you anticipate to happen every 10 years, every year. It just financially doesn’t work.”

Both agreed that reform has to come from multiple directions — government funding, private investment, and homeowner participation. The “public-private” model of resilience is no longer theoretical; it’s a survival strategy.

5. Integrated Emergency Response: Beyond Jurisdictional Boundaries

One of the most innovative projects Williams discussed was Santa Barbara’s upcoming borderless dispatch system for fire and emergency medical services.

Under the current model, separate fire districts and agencies dispatch their own resources, even when another district might have a closer available unit. The new system will integrate dispatch centers across jurisdictions, allowing the nearest available engine or ambulance — regardless of district — to respond first.

“We’re going to have an integrated screen where people can see what resources are available and always get the closest available resource to you,” Williams explained.

Each county engine will also have at least one ALS-certified (Advanced Life Support) paramedic onboard, effectively bringing ambulance-level expertise to every fire truck in the county.

Susman praised the effort as “a buried benefit” — the kind of safety infrastructure that should be listed alongside school districts and amenities when buying a home. The initiative underscores how governance decisions directly affect insurance risk, emergency response times, and ultimately, lives.

6. Public Responsibility and Private Partnership

As the conversation turned toward community roles, Williams emphasized that resilience can’t be outsourced to government alone.

“Most governments have to budget for the big stuff like debris basins,” he said. “But cleanup and smaller creek maintenance are really a partnership between private owners and government.”

In other words, public agencies handle systemic defense, but homeowners must handle property-level risk — trimming trees, clearing debris, and maintaining defensible space.

That shared model is not just efficient; it’s essential. As climate impacts intensify, traditional lines between “public” and “private” responsibility are blurring. Both sides now have skin in the game — and both are realizing that prevention costs far less than recovery.

7. The Insurance Connection

Susman closed the episode by connecting the dots between local governance and the state’s insurance reform effort.

When communities like Santa Barbara upgrade their infrastructure, modernize emergency systems, and promote wildfire mitigation, insurers can differentiate risk more precisely. That’s critical to attracting carriers back into markets where more than 80% have either stopped writing new policies or drastically limited exposure.

As Susman put it, “Carriers can’t make money unless they write policies. But they can’t write policies unless the math works. Local resilience helps make the math work.”

Williams echoed that optimism, suggesting that by combining policy reform, local leadership, and citizen participation, California can stabilize its insurance market while strengthening safety.

“We have to figure out how to do this together,” he said. “Local flood control agencies are going to be there for you — but we have to do our part.”

Final Thoughts

The interview between Karl Susman and Das Williams revealed what many discussions about insurance reform overlook: that resilience is built as much from the ground up as from the top down.

Policy modernization, infrastructure investment, and homeowner action aren’t competing strategies — they’re interconnected layers of the same solution.

Santa Barbara’s approach offers a model for the rest of California: a blend of scientific awareness, fiscal realism, and community partnership that recognizes climate change as not just an environmental issue, but a governance and insurance challenge.

In the end, both Susman and Williams struck the same note — cautious optimism.

“We see light at the end of the tunnel,” Susman said, “and we just hope it’s not an oncoming train.”

If that light represents a more sustainable, collaborative insurance model, then California’s future — and its communities — may be safer than they look today.