SB 1348 amends Section 10110 of the California Insurance Code to replace gendered pronouns (he, him, himself) with gender-neutral language (they, them, themselves) in the statute that defines who has an insurable interest in a life or disability insurance contract. The bill is presented as technical and nonsubstantive; it does not add or remove categories of persons who may hold an insurable interest.
Practically, the change is a drafting modernization. Compliance teams, form-drafters, and counsel should plan modest housekeeping — updating policy templates and internal references — and be aware of the small interpretive questions that switching to singular "they" can introduce for courts, automated systems, and cross-references elsewhere in the code.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill amends Insurance Code §10110 by replacing gendered pronouns in subsections (a)–(d) with gender-neutral pronouns. The statutory categories that create an insurable interest remain unchanged.
Who It Affects
Insurers that issue life and disability policies in California, corporate and individual policy drafters, in-house and outside counsel, the Department of Insurance, and policy administration systems that generate or parse statutory citations and form language.
Why It Matters
This is a low-profile drafting change that signals a broader move toward inclusive statutory language; it nevertheless triggers operational updates to forms and templates and raises minor interpretive and technical questions about singular "they" in statutory text and downstream systems.
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What This Bill Actually Does
SB 1348 is a narrowly focused amendment: it edits the wording of Insurance Code §10110, which lists who has an insurable interest in a person’s life or health. The bill swaps a series of masculine pronouns—"himself," "he," and "him"—for gender-neutral pronouns—"themselves," "they," and "them"—without changing the list of categories (self, dependents for education or support, persons under a legal obligation, and persons on whom an estate or interest depends).
Because the bill does not add new categories or change thresholds for insurable interest, it leaves the substantive law intact. Courts should continue to apply the same legal tests to determine whether an insurable interest exists.
That said, the textual shift to singular "they" is meaningful in practice: lawyers will update contract boilerplate and insurers will update model policy language, disclosures, and internal manuals to match the statutory wording.Operational impacts are largely administrative. Policy templates, automated document-generation rules, and regulatory checklists that embed or mirror statutory language will require edits.
Insurers that maintain downstream systems that parse statutory text (for compliance checks, form-fill automation, or regulatory reporting) may need small fixes to avoid grammar or parsing errors. Regulators and litigators could face occasional questions about whether the pronoun change affects interpretation, but the legislative digest’s characterization of the amendment as "technical, nonsubstantive" makes a strong record against claims of substantive change.Finally, the bill is a signal item: it aligns one provision of the Insurance Code with contemporary inclusive drafting practices.
Unless accompanied by a broader code-wide harmonization effort, the practical consequence will be a patchwork of statutes using mixed pronoun conventions, which could create minor friction for drafting and automated processing across different code sections.
The Five Things You Need to Know
SB 1348 amends California Insurance Code §10110 — the statutory list of who has an insurable interest in life and health.
The bill replaces masculine pronouns in subsections (a)–(d) with gender-neutral pronouns (e.g.
"himself" → "themselves", "he" → "they").
The amendment does not add, remove, or redefine any category of insurable interest; the statutory scope remains the same.
The Legislative Counsel’s digest characterizes the changes as "technical, nonsubstantive," signaling legislative intent against altering legal effect.
The bill notes no appropriation and no fiscal committee action, implying limited direct fiscal impact on state programs.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Modernizes pronouns in the insurable-interest list
This single section revises the pronouns used throughout §10110. Mechanically it performs a find‑and‑replace of gendered terms with gender-neutral ones across the statute’s four clauses. The practical implication is textual: anyone quoting the statute in contracts, regulatory filings, or compliance policies should use the updated language to avoid mismatches.
Self‑interest clause: 'himself' → 'themselves'
Subsection (a) originally read that a person has an insurable interest in 'himself.' The bill changes that to 'themselves.' This is a grammatical modernization and does not alter that a person may insure their own life or health.
Dependents clause: 'he depends' → 'they depend'
Clause (b) refers to persons on whom the insured depends for education or support. Swapping 'he' for 'they' keeps the contingent nature of the interest unchanged but shifts the pronoun convention, which is relevant when statutes or forms refer back to the clause by pronoun or incorporate its language verbatim.
Obligation and estate‑dependence clauses updated for neutrality
Clauses dealing with persons under legal obligation (c) and those whose estate interests depend on another’s life (d) receive parallel pronoun updates. Practically, insurers should confirm that policy forms, beneficiary designations, and internal coverage guidelines that cite these clauses mirror the amended wording to avoid editorial inconsistencies or automated-matching failures.
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Explore Finance in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Policyholders who prefer inclusive language — they will see statutes and possibly policy forms that use gender-neutral pronouns.
- Legal drafters and corporate counsel — consistent neutral wording reduces the need for gendered alternatives and modernizes template libraries.
- Regulators and diversity‑focused stakeholders — the change supports inclusive drafting practices and reduces the risk of perceived gender bias in statutory text.
Who Bears the Cost
- Insurers and policy administrators — they must update templates, consumer notices, policy language, and automated document systems to reflect the new wording.
- In‑house and outside counsel — minor drafting and review time to ensure that contracts and disclosures align with amended statutory language.
- Department of Insurance and examiners — a small administrative burden to update guidance, model forms, and exam documentation to match the revised statute.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between updating statutes for inclusive, modern language and preserving absolute textual stability to avoid any ambiguity or administrative burden; the bill favors inclusivity and modern drafting but creates modest costs and rare interpretive questions that defenders of literal textual continuity may object to.
The bill’s changes are textual and framed as technical, but changing pronouns in statutory language is not entirely risk-free. The shift to singular "they" can introduce grammatical oddities in cross-references or in sentences where the antecedent’s number or gender is relevant to parsing.
That creates faint but real risks for automated systems that parse statute text, older contract templates that expect gendered pronouns, and revenue- or compliance‑calculation logic that relies on exact phrase matches.
There is also the interpretive edge case: while the Legislative Counsel’s digest labels the edits nonsubstantive, courts occasionally treat textual changes as evidence of intent. If a dispute arises where wording nuances matter (for example, a beneficiary designation that tracks statutory phrasing), litigants might argue that the Legislature subtly shifted scope or emphasis.
Finally, because the bill updates only one provision, California’s statutory corpus will continue to mix pronoun conventions until a broader harmonization effort occurs, perpetuating the need for parallel edits and careful drafting across codes.
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