Insurance Companies Will Try to Exploit the L.A. Fires. We Can’t Let Them
Mother Nature exploded in Los Angeles this month with the most damaging wildfires in the city’s, and likely the nation’s, history. We still don’t know the full extent of the devastation that is already massive with impacts felt across the city.
When the fires subside, families in the Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and all the impacted Angeleno communities face a long road to recover and rebuild. The challenges of this recovery will be made worse by the mass non-renewals by insurance companies that have left many homeowners uninsured, underinsured, or stuck in the FAIR Plan, California’s high-cost, low-benefit state insurer of last resort. Homeowners who paid into policies with the same insurer for decades are justifiably angry about their abrupt abandonment by home insurance companies. Even those with full, traditional coverage face an arduous claims process to receive full benefits from an industry known for low-balling policyholders.
Insurance companies blame more destructive weather events for the pullouts and non-renewals and complain that California consumer protection laws prevent them from charging enough money to operate. They say they just want to account for climate change in rates. Yet those assertions feel hollow for homeowners whose own, often extensive, mitigation spending is routinely ignored by insurance companies.
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