anyone familiar with the california insurance guarantee assoc?

[Mark Hu]

We are shopping for insurance for some rentals in southern california, and I've read that it is good for an insurance company to be admitted to the CIGA. But I've checked on some large carriers such as allstate and metlife, and they are not admitted.
I thought CIGA was something that an insurance company had to be admitted to in order to be 'respectable', since it covered insurnance policies if the carrier went bankrupt, and that the majority of insurance carriers in california were a partr of it. But am I incorrect? For example, are the big carriers considered to have so much financial resources as to not need CIGA?