Kingstone Companies has appointed Sylvie Widjaja as vice president, California business leader, as the New York-based regional property and casualty insurer makes its first expansion outside the Northeast by entering California's homeowners market on an excess and surplus lines basis.
Widjaja joins from Mercury Insurance Group, one of California's largest personal lines insurers, where she held senior distribution and market strategy roles across both personal and commercial lines. Her background also includes leadership positions at Travelers and Progressive spanning underwriting and claims. She will report to Meryl Golden, president and chief executive officer.
Golden said: "California represents a meaningful opportunity, and success will depend on strong local market expertise, deep agent relationships, and disciplined execution. Sylvie brings a proven track record of leading in the California market through one of its most challenging periods, along with the local insight, operating rigor, and commitment to the independent agency channel needed to navigate its complexity."
Kingstone is entering California at a moment when the homeowners insurance landscape has been fundamentally reshaped. Surplus lines homeowners policies in California surpassed 300,000 in 2025, a level without precedent in the state's history, according to data from the Surplus Line Association of California. The surge is no longer confined to wildfire-exposed areas. Urban homes now represent roughly 90% of all E&S placements in the state, with Los Angeles and San Diego alone accounting for nearly one in nine E&S homeowners placements statewide, a pattern that reflects coverage scarcity rather than worsening hazard.
The capacity gap was created by a wave of admitted carrier withdrawals. State Farm, California's largest property insurer, halted new homeowners business in May 2023. Allstate and Farmers pulled back significantly. The January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, with insured losses estimated at up to $40 billion, further accelerated the admitted market's retreat. The California FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort, reached 668,600 policies by the end of 2025, up 44% in approximately 14 months.
California's regulatory framework is evolving in parallel. Commissioner Ricardo Lara's Sustainable Insurance Strategy now permits insurers to use forward-looking catastrophe models and factor in the net cost of reinsurance in rate filings, provided they commit to writing 85% of their statewide market share in wildfire-distressed ZIP codes. Mercury and CSAA were the first carriers to receive Sustainable Insurance Strategy rate approvals, each at 6.9%, in December 2025. Travelers announced an expansion of California homeowners coverage in April 2026. Admitted market recovery remains gradual, however, and E&S capacity continues to fill the gap in the interim.
E&S writers grew 32% in California in 2025 and now hold approximately 7% of the state's homeowners market. Nationally, E&S premium volume is projected to reach $140 to $145 billion in 2025, having grown 223% over the past decade at roughly three times the pace of the broader property and casualty market, according to MarshBerry.
Kingstone's California entry is a cornerstone of a five-year growth plan targeting $500 million in written premium by 2029. In an April 2026 shareholder letter, Golden highlighted record 2025 results, including net income of $40.8 million, a combined ratio of 75% and a 43% return on equity, following a multiyear restructuring focused on disciplined underwriting and cost reduction. California was identified as the primary expansion target given that its homeowners market exceeds $15 billion in premium, nearly double the size of New York's, alongside the significant capacity gap left by admitted carriers.
The company's entry on an E&S basis is deliberate. E&S carriers writing California homeowners business are not required to file products with the state, giving Kingstone the flexibility to set rates that accurately reflect risk and respond rapidly to changing market conditions. Golden has stated that Kingstone will scale only when underwriting results support it, keeping California below 5% of 2026 premium while retaining the ability to adjust quickly if conditions change.
Widjaja said: "As a California resident, I've seen firsthand the challenges agents and homeowners are facing as capacity shifted across the market. Kingstone is well positioned to deliver solutions that enable agents to continue serving homeowners across the state."
Her appointment operates through KINS Insurance Agency, Kingstone's E&S broker subsidiary, giving the company a locally experienced operator with direct distribution relationships from day one.
