California insurance regulator starts work on AI consumer safeguards with insurer survey and public workshop

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has started work on consumer safeguards for the use of AI in insurance, the California Department of Insurance said in a press release on November 13. The department is launching a Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence (RUAI) survey of insurers and will hold a virtual public workshop on December 15.

The survey asks insurers how they use AI, how they govern those systems, what role third-party vendors play and how AI affects their operations. Responses are due by December 30. The workshop invites consumers, insurers, researchers, developers and advocates to comment on transparency, fairness, privacy, human oversight and insurer responsibility for vendor tools. Written comments are due by December 12.

The department is not adopting rules yet: the workshop will not discuss regulatory text, and any formal proposal would get its own public comment process. "You can outsource technology, but you cannot outsource responsibility," Lara said. The effort builds on the department's 2022 bulletin on bias and unfair discrimination, a 2023 survey of automated decision tools and Senate Bill 354, a 2026 insurance privacy law it sponsored.