Insurance Is the Reason People Are Not Rebuilding

The remains of homes and possessions have been removed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Only three percent of homes destroyed in the Palisades Fire now have permits, such as this one on Radcliffe. The holdup for many people is insurance money.

“When disaster strikes, Californians deserve one simple thing: timely access to the benefits we’ve already paid for. Instead, after the Eaton and Palisades fires, we face a second catastrophe: insurance itself,” said Joy Chen executive director of Eaton Fire Survivors Network (EFSN), who is leading survivors seeking owed insurance payments.

“The Department of Angels found that 70% of insured Eaton and Palisades survivors report that delays and denials are impeding recovery,” Chen said. “What should be a safety net has become a wrecking ball — wrecking our finances, our health, and the futures we’ve worked so hard to build.”  Chen’s home did not burn in the Eaton Fire but is uninhabitable with water and soot click here. Many Palisades residents have reached out to Chen, who now has more than 500 stories on Discord.

The EFSN is hosting a Consumer Watchdog Meeting via Zoom from 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, September 16. The webinar seats 1,000, to register click here.

Joining Chen tomorrow will be Harvey Rosenfield (the man who wrote Proposition 103, California’s landmark insurance reform law) Consumer Watchdog Executive Director Carmen Balber and Litigation Director Will Pletcher.

There will be a briefing on:

• The fight to hold State Farm accountable amidst a billion-dollar rate hike proceeding
• What Proposition 103 really says — and why it may come back on the ballot
• How we can hold regulators accountable for unlawful delays and denials

California already has some of the strongest consumer protections in the nation. The problem is that Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is failing to effectively enforce them.

A Palisades resident wrote: “We are now on our 9th State Farm adjuster… can’t make this shit up! And another manager is also included in the ‘new deal.’”

The resident asked, “Is there anyone taking names of the always changing State Farm adjusters and their respective managers who have been assigned to the claims post fire?”

“None of ours have been located in state, but some said they have settled claims in Altadena,” the resident said and wondered about the idea of organizing some form of story to share amongst neighbors would seem a worthy endeavor.

This editor and her husband are on their fifth adjuster, who lives in Pennsylvania and wants receipts and photos of everything that burned. (And it goes without saying receipts and photos burned, because like many Palisadians who have evacuated many times, we didn’t load the car because we thought we’d be back the next day. Who knew that there would be such incompetence surrounding the fire?)

Another resident wrote “Just curious if anyone is still working on personal property inventory for insurance? Horrible task!”

Current state law requires insurers to pay at least 30 percent of personal property coverage, up to $250,000 upfront before requiring the policyholder to inventory their contents lost from a state of emergency. A bill, SB 495, proposed by State Senator Ben Allen will increase this threshold to at least 60 percent of the content’s coverage, up to $350,000 upfront. SB 495 will not be retroactive. Initially Allen asked for 100 percent of the coverage, but the insurance committee chair said, “no.”

This CTN editor explained to State Senator Ben Allen, that it is insurance money holding up rebuilding and remediation,  not permits.