Affordable insurance should be available to all

Iam pleased Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and key legislators are advancing additional assistance for fire victims in Northern New Mexico. New Mexico is rich in culture and tradition, and we work with one another to ensure our heritage continues to thrive with every new generation.

An Associated Press article that appeared widely on Oct. 24, 2022, highlighted a crisis of inadequate insurance coverage impacting thousands of New Mexico homeowners suffering the devastating effects of wildfires and flooding that continues to harm families, properties and livelihoods.

Affordable insurance is not available to many New Mexicans, and insurance providers are not stepping up for our state. Mayor Louie Trujillo of the city of Las Vegas has expressed that this crisis is causing a sense of insecurity and despair in his community. In a state with permanently uninsured homes — many third- and fourth-generation, the crisis is worsening.

Our state, largely Hispanic and Native American, is among the nation’s poorest and is now bearing the brunt of a kind of invisible discrimination — an inadvertent redlining. Redlining is the discriminatory practice where basic services are withheld from underrepresented populations based upon ethnicity and economic status.

New Mexico leaders eventually will implement legal changes that will give the New Mexico superintendent of insurance more options. Recently, leaders convinced the California Insurance Company, an A-plus-rated U.S. insurance company, to move to New Mexico and begin issuing fair and affordable policies to the most underrepresented communities in our state.

Unfortunately, bureaucrats in California blocked this company, CIC, from transferring and setting up in New Mexico. Meanwhile, New Mexico families suffer overwhelming future threats of wildfire losses, and this will continue to make the market undesirable for any new insurance provider’s entry, and deplorably costly for consumers.

As New Mexicans, we have faith in tradition and family. We have lived on these lands for generations, passing our Native and Hispanic heritage on from one generation to the next. I know Gov. Lujan Grisham and Californa’s Gov. Gavin Newsom understand these hardships, but even the most resilient families impacted by natural disasters and forest fires need a fair and equitable insurance market to recover with dignity.