California has a law limiting insurance companies' ability to raise rates on fire policies to keep premiums from getting too high. Insurance companies, in response, stopped offering coverage in areas where they were likely to lose money. Residents in those areas were left either uninsured or stuck with expensive substandard FAIR coverage.
As of now, it is estimated that FAIR won't be able to cover all the losses of its policyholders and will have to collect the difference from insurance companies that operate in the state. The insurance companies will, in turn, pass those costs on to their policyholders in the form of higher premiums.
What does that mean? Joe Citizen will be paying higher premiums to ACME Insurance to cover loses that weren't insured by ACME Insurance because the state didn't want ACME Insurance to charge higher premiums. I'm not one to play the "They asked for it" card but wow, Californians are a different breed.