Farmers Insurance plans to increase the number of homeowners insurance policies it will write and begin offering coverage again for new customers in other types of dwellings, citing improvements in California’s home insurance market.

The Los Angeles-based company, the state’s second-largest home insurer, said it will boost the number of homeowners policies it will accept from new customers to 9,500 per month, up from 7,000. It also will resume writing new policies for condominiums, renters, landlords and other lines. It said many of those policies had been temporarily paused for more than a year.

“Farmers Insurance has decided to take these steps to increase coverage availability for California consumers because we recognize that the state’s insurance marketplace has indeed improved,” said Behram Dinshaw, president of personal lines for Farmers Insurance, in a statement Wednesday.

The decision runs counter to some other large insurers who have pulled back from the market amid widening wildfire losses, including State Farm General, the state’s largest home insurer.

State Farm in March said it would not renew 72,000 home, apartment and other property policies, citing soaring reconstruction costs, increasing wildfire risks and outdated state regulations.

Farmers did not offer more detail on how the market has improved, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Already this fire season, Southern California has experienced home losses, including a handful of homes during this week’s Franklin fire in Malibu. The Mountain fire last month in Ventura County destroyed 243 buildings and damaged dozens more.

Farmers also said it is expanding coverage to be “well-positioned to provide even more coverage options” next year once a package of insurance reforms proposed by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara goes into effect.

The commissioner’s Sustainable Insurance Strategy calls for allowing insurers to use new types of computer models to forecast wildfire losses, and to include in their premiums the cost of reinsurance, which insurers buy to protect themselves from catastrophic losses.

“This is a positive step forward for California homeowners, renters, and businesses who have faced significant challenges accessing coverage. While more work needs to be done, this is a clear sign our reforms are working, as insurance companies plan to re-enter and expand in California,” Lara said in a statement.

Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog, a Los Angeles group that has been critical of the industry and Lara’s reforms, said it was premature to “celebrate” the company’s decision.

“The public deserves a full accounting of how many homeowners Farmers has abandoned before congratulating them on selling more policies again,” she said in a statement.

Farmers said it would offer the paused policies in phases, starting with condominium and renter’s insurance on Saturday.

On July 1, 2024, Farmers also lifted its temporary moratorium on new commercial automobile insurance policies in California.

It is just past 10 p.m. and Aaliyah Arnold, the 20-year-old founder of BossUp Cosmetics, is selling to the TikTok universe.

As she livestreams from a Culver City filming location, about 750 people around the world watch her announce a flash sale for a mystery box containing six to eight BossUp products. Typically priced at $101.96, the bundle is now 49% off — for the next few minutes only. On viewers’ smartphone screens, a countdown timer and a red “Buy” button appear, along with a flurry of heart emojis.

“Make sure you’re shopping shopping shopping till you can’t shop no more!” Arnold, in a light pink Santa Claus sweatshirt and a full face of glam, says into one of several cameras arranged around her. To the side of the makeshift stage, members of a production crew, fueled by energy drinks and a steady stream of fast-food deliveries, ready the next group of products.

Arnold is 10 hours into a marathon selling spree and still has two hours to go. Like a Gen Z version of QVC, TikTok Live shopping events are part of a push by the social media platform to combine the convenience of mobile commerce and the frenzied consumerism of limited-time deals with interactive, unscripted entertainment. By the time her livestream ends at midnight, Arnold will have racked up $70,000 in sales and 10,000 new followers.

TikTok launched TikTok Shop — a feature that enables users to buy directly within the app — in the U.S. last year, and since then small-business owners, celebrities and major retailers have been using the livestreaming function to boost their sales and engage with customers in real time. Brands might use a Live to unveil a line of boots and take questions from viewers on sizing, or to demonstrate how to use a new hairstyling tool or kitchen gadget.

Although anyone with at least 1,000 followers can livestream themselves, TikTok has been reaching out to influential users like Arnold who have large followings and a proven ability to sell and inviting them to be a part of its TikTok Shop Partner program.

In exchange for a cut of the action, the company offers professional services to help sellers turbocharge their businesses. That includes helping them produce, as Arnold described, “huge mega livestreams” — splashy multi-hour events professionally filmed in studios, event spaces and homes around Los Angeles.

A look at how Arnold’s recent TikTok Live shopping event appeared on viewers’ mobile screens around the world. Live selling enables customers to interact with sellers in real time.

(TikTok)

TikTok’s push into the e-commerce market comes amid a backdrop of uncertainty over the company’s future in the country. The app faces a nationwide ban after years of back and forth with the U.S. government over national security concerns; the ban is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 19 unless TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divests its U.S. operations.

Online live selling has been a retail phenomenon for years in China but has been slower to catch on in the U.S., where it accounts for only a tiny fraction of e-commerce revenue. That’s despite the 1990s popularity of television channels like QVC and the Home Shopping Network, and more recent live-shopping efforts by tech companies and retail brands including Amazon. In 2022, Facebook shut down its live-selling feature after two years; Instagram pulled the plug a few months later.

Livestreaming e-commerce was estimated to total $31.7 billion in the U.S. last year, according to Coresight Research.

“This pales in comparison to China’s livestreaming market, which was valued at $512 billion in 2022, revealing the significant growth opportunity in the U.S. market,” the firm said.

With a built-in audience of 170 million American users, many of them extremely online young adults well-versed in shopping on their mobile devices, TikTok is trying to push the watch-and-shop trend into the mainstream.

Rene and Arnold demonstrate BossUp’s lip oil to viewers during her livestream.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Live selling is “redefining the future of shopping on TikTok Shop,” said Nico Le Bourgeois, head of U.S. operations for TikTok Shop. He said the number of Live shopping sessions hosted on the app every month has nearly tripled in the last year.

Longer and higher-quality Lives drive more sales on TikTok Shop; that’s a win for sellers and for the social media company, which takes a single-digit percentage cut of sales on the platform, set at 6% and called a referral fee. Le Bourgeois declined to say how much revenue live selling has generated but said the number of people shopping on TikTok Shop every month has nearly tripled since its launch 15 months ago.

TikTok Lives have become a pillar of brands’ sales strategies for the holiday season, and cheerfully chaotic livestreams are being held around the clock. From Nov. 13 through Dec. 2, nearly half a million Live shopping sessions were hosted on TikTok, for a total of more than 660,000 hours.

On Nov. 24, rapper Nicki Minaj hosted a two-hour livestream for her line of press-on nails that became the highest-viewed TikTok Shop Live ever, with 80,000 viewers simultaneously watching at one point. A few days later, Canvas Beauty Brand founder Stormi Steele surpassed $2 million in sales during her Black Friday livestream, a new record for a single TikTok Live.

The foray into e-commerce marks an evolution for a platform that had been known primarily as a place to endlessly scroll through frothy short-form videos. In short order, the company has shown that it “isn’t just entertainment — it’s a retail accelerator,” Oliver Chen, a retail analyst and Columbia Business School professor, wrote last month.

Arnold started BossUp when she was 14 and joined TikTok a year later in 2019. She would spontaneously host livestreams by broadcasting herself from her iPhone, which grew her fan base and got the word out about her burgeoning cosmetics brand.

But if viewers wanted to buy products, Arnold had to direct them to BossUp’s website because TikTok wasn’t shoppable back then. Many wouldn’t follow through.

Arnold founded BossUp when she was 14 and joined TikTok a year later. She would casually livestream from her iPhone, which grew her fan base and got the word out about her burgeoning beauty company.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Advertisement

After the introduction of TikTop Shop in September 2023, BossUp sales swelled and Arnold’s casual livestreams caught the attention of TikTok. The company emailed Arnold with an offer to set her up with a Los Angeles agency called Yowant that specializes in working with online creators.

Arnold now flies from her home near Houston to L.A. every few weeks to host lengthy TikTok Live shopping sessions produced by the agency, which negotiates payment directly with its clients. Yowant provides her with producers and engineers, and assembles a stage with lighting, cameras and large monitors that display questions and comments as soon as viewers type them.

TikTok Shop employees, meanwhile, help her decide on a sales strategy for each Live, planning out the optimal date, a catchy soundtrack, how steep the discounts should be and which third-party affiliate products she should sell alongside her own, for which she receives a commission.

Right at noon on the day of her Live last month in Culver City, the crew lets out a roar of cheers as the cameras are turned on.

“Deals and sales and giveaways — you don’t want to miss it, join in join in join in!” Arnold shouts over the commotion. “The biggest Live we’ve ever done, it’s starting right now…. Get a drink, get a snack, let’s go!”

“This is so overstimulating,” types one viewer.

Arnold and co-host Daniel Rene kick things off with a flash deal for BossUp’s Color Changing Lip Oil, usually $12.99 but marked down to $5. “Tap tap tap, shop shop shop!” she says before reminding viewers that shipping is free. Orders begin to pour in.

Seconds later a bullhorn blares, signaling the end of the deal, and Arnold is immediately on to the next discount. She does several makeup tutorials during the Live, deftly lining her lips a deep mahogany shade as a cameraman zooms in on her voluminous pout.

“People pay good money for lips like that!” Rene says approvingly.

In an interview with The Times before the livestream began, Arnold said TikTok Shop “has built me up like crazy.” She declined to provide revenue figures, but said that in the 12 months after TikTok Shop was introduced, BossUp sales increased nearly 500% compared with the 12 months prior.

That enabled her to purchase a house in June and bring on family members as employees. She bought a truck for her grandfather and a packaging warehouse for her fast-growing business.

Arnold’s recent TikTok Live in Culver City brought in $70,000 in sales over 12 hours.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Despite the uncertainty around TikTok’s future, business owners are forging ahead with all-out Live sessions in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Over six days starting the day before Thanksgiving, Magdalena Peña, the founder of beauty and hair-care brand Simply Mandys, hosted three TikTok Live sessions for a combined 29 hours. The first brought in more than $1 million in sales.

Like Arnold, Peña was approached by employees at TikTok Shop shortly after the e-commerce feature was rolled out.

“When they told me, ‘Can you do Live for 12 hours?’ I was like, ‘You guys are sick, no,’” she recalled. “There’s no way.”

The professional services and other perks that came with TikTok’s support, however, persuaded her to reconsider. The company, for example, offered free advertising and to pay for 30% discounts for first-time buyers.

There were some stipulations: Peña, 37, could no longer include her daughter in her livestreams because she was underage; wasn’t able to showcase products not linked to TikTok Shop; and had to ship orders within two days.

“The better you follow the rules,” she said, “the more TikTok helps you.”

Magdalena Peña, the founder of beauty and hair-care company Simply Mandys, during a TikTok Live last month.

(TikTok)

Advertisement

Since partnering with the company, she has filmed TikTok Live shopping sessions in Culver City and West Hollywood. Peña is responsible for paying her travel costs to the Live sessions, driving with her husband and business partner from their home in Sanger, Calif.

That is, until a few weeks ago, when the couple bought a small plane. Simply Mandys’ revenue through November of this year was already quadruple what it was in 2023 — a jump Peña credits to her Live events on TikTok, which she called a “total game-changer.”

She said she is still adjusting to the frequent travel and the long days of filming, finding motivation in the adrenaline rush that comes when she sees the sales figures climb during her Lives.

“I do everything possible to hit the goal,” she said. “I tell my team, ‘I’m not leaving here until I hit that number.’”

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to hike the minimum wage for more than 23,000 tourism workers, handing a huge victory to labor unions whose members have struggled to keep up with the rising cost of food, rent and other expenses.

On a 12-3 vote, council members instructed City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to draft the legal language needed to push those wages to a minimum of $30 per hour by July 2028, just as the city hosts the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.

During a meeting that lasted more than five hours, council members touted the economic benefits of a higher tourism wage, saying it would prompt workers to spend more money across the region — and, as a result, spur the creation of thousands of new jobs.

“When we support low-wage workers, they can contribute to our economy and bolster the city,” said Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who took office on Monday and represents part of the Eastside.

Councilmember John Lee, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley, voted against the proposal, warning his colleagues they were about to “take an ax to the local economy.” Councilmembers Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez also voted no, saying they fear hotels and other businesses will scale back operations, cutting employees or turning to automation.

“My hope is that we’re not creating the best paid unemployed workforce in the country,” Rodriguez said.

The campaign for the so-called Olympic wage had been spearheaded by Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel and restaurant workers, and United Service Workers West, a local of the Service Employees International Union whose members work at Los Angeles International Airport. Both organizations staged rallies, led marches and, this week, organized a three-day fast by tourism workers stationed outside City Hall.

Jovan Houston, an LAX customer service agent who took part in the fast, said she was “overjoyed” with the vote. Houston, 42, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and believes the wage package would help ease costs of treatment.

“I’m glad they came to their senses, finally,” she said.

Under the proposal, the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers would go up in increments of $2.50 per year, starting at $22.50 in July and moving to $25 in July 2026, $27.50 in July 2027 and $30 in July 2028.

At hotels, housekeepers, desk clerks and other employees would see a 48% hike over 3½ years, compared with the $20.32 per hour currently set by the city’s hotel minimum wage law. They would also receive a new $8.35 per hour payment to cover healthcare.

Those increases would apply to workers in hotels with at least 60 rooms.

Skycaps, cabin cleaners and many other workers at Los Angeles International Airport would see an increase to their minimum wage of nearly 56% by July 2028, compared with the hourly rate currently required by the city’s living wage ordinance. The current minimum wage at LAX is $19.28 per hour.

Those workers also would see their healthcare payment jump to $8.35 per hour, up from from $5.95.

Throughout the meeting, hotel and airport workers described their struggle to pay for child care, housing and meals. Some fought back tears as they pleaded with council members to approve the higher wages.

Lorena Mendez, who is employed by LSG Sky Chefs, said housing costs have climbed so rapidly that she and her three daughters moved from Inglewood to Bakersfield. Mendez, 55, said she now spends several nights each week sleeping on her sister’s couch in Lennox or at her mom’s home in Hawthorne to avoid the more punishing commute.

“We’re not living. We are surviving, and that’s not fair,” she said.

Business leaders said the wage increases — coupled with the new or increased healthcare payments — would wreak havoc on the city’s hotels and LAX concessionaires. Some hotel owners said they are rethinking their participation in room block agreements needed for the Olympic Games, while others said they are looking at closing their dining operations.

Lightstone Group, which owns the 727-room Moxy + AC Hotels near the city’s Convention Center, said the wage proposal could result in the closure of Level 8, a collection of restaurants on the hotel’s eighth floor.

Level 8 is already struggling to cover the $20.32 per hour required as part of the city’s hotel minimum wage law, said Mitchell Hochberg, president of Lightstone, in an Oct. 31 letter to Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson.

The city’s overall minimum wage is $17.28 per hour.

“We’re already fighting this battle with a minimum wage that is $3 above our non-hotel peers and are experiencing the repercussions,” Hochberg wrote. “It’s simply impossible for us to remain competitive while absorbing the higher operating costs.”

Mark Davis, president and chief executive of Sun Hill Properties, said the wage proposal would “likely kill” his company’s plans for expanding the Hilton Universal City Hotel. Such a move, he said, would deprive the city of about 1,000 planned construction jobs and some 200 “permanent, good paying jobs.”

David Roland-Holst, a Berkeley-based economist hired by the city to assess the proposal, largely dismissed the dire warnings.

Appearing before the council, he said he expects that hotels will accommodate their increased labor costs by raising prices by an average of 6%. Although some job losses will occur, the wage hikes will ultimately serve as a “potent tool for economic growth,” spurring the creation of 6,000 full-time jobs in L.A. by 2028, he said.

“We don’t see any empirical evidence of massive layoffs in response to minimum wages anywhere in California,” Roland-Holst said.

Even if the council had rejected the proposal, the minimum wage for LAX and hotel workers would have continued to go up on an annual basis. Those increases would have been tied to the consumer price index, according to city policy analysts.

The proposal is expected to increase the wages of more than 40% of airport workers and more than 60% of hotel workers in L.A., according to an analysis prepared for the city.

Economics professor Robert Baumann at College of the Holy Cross, who studies the effects of the Olympics on cities, said L.A.’s hotel and airport workers are in a prime position to demand higher wages. With the city hosting an event as prominent as the Olympics, they have “a unique amount of leverage right now,” he said.

“The time is ripe to go for a wage increase,” he said.

L.A. could still see labor tensions in the run-up to the 2028 Olympics, even with a higher tourism minimum wage in place. That’s because dozens of hotel employee contracts are scheduled to expire in January 2028, about half a year before the Games.

As part of their decision Wednesday, council members requested a yearly assessment of the higher wages on jobs, hotel development and other aspects of the tourism industry. They also voted to seek a report next year on alternative policy strategies for businesses that lease space at hotels, including restaurants, shops and spas.

Council members rejected a move to cut the number of hotels covered by the wage hike. And they turned back an effort to limit the types of hotel workers affected by the wage increases.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley, voted in favor of the proposal. Nevertheless, she said she was disappointed that her colleagues weren’t interested in addressing some of the concerns about the higher wages.

“I voted yes because to me this is about the workers, and it was always about the workers for me,” she said. “But I always wanted to be able to proudly say we compromised, and that we paid attention to all stakeholders. Because we really didn’t.”